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The Spanish Student

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

DRAMATIS PERSONAE VICTORIAN HYPOLITO                                                Students of Alcala. THE COUNT OF LARA DON CARLOS                                            Gentlemen of Madrid. THE ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO. A CARDINAL. BELTRAN CRUZADO                                Count of the Gypsies. BARTOLOME ROMAN                                A young Gypsy. THE PADRE CURA OF GUADARRAMA. PEDRO CRESPO                                        Alcalde. PANCHO                                                    Alguacil. FRANCISCO                                            Lara's Servant. CHISPA                                                    Victorian's Servant. BALTASAR                                                Innkeeper. PRECIOSA                                                A Gypsy Girl. ANGELICA                                                A poor Girl. MARTINA                                                The Padre Cura's Niece. DOLORES                                                Preciosa's Maid. Gypsies, Musicians, etc. ACT I. SCENE I.--The COUNT OF LARA'S chambers.    Night.    The COUNT in his dressing-gown, smoking and conversing with DON CARLOS. Lara.    You were not at the play tonight, Don Carlos; How happened it? Don C.    I had engagements elsewhere. Pray who was there? Lara.    Why all the town and court. The house was crowded; and the busy fans Among the gayly dressed and perfumed ladies Fluttered like butterflies among the flowers. There was the Countess of Medina Celi; The Goblin Lady with her Phantom Lover, Her Lindo Don Diego; Dona Sol, And Dona Serafina, and her cousins. Don C.    What was the play? Lara.    It was a dull affair; One of those comedies in which you see, As Lope says, the history of the world Brought down from Genesis to the Day of Judgment. There were three duels fought in the first act, Three gentlemen receiving deadly wounds, Laying their hands upon their hearts, and saying, "O, I am dead!" a lover in a closet, An old hidalgo, and a gay Don Juan, A Dona Inez with a black mantilla, Followed at twilight by an unknown lover, Who looks intently where he knows she is not! Don C.    Of course, the Preciosa danced to-night? Lara.    And never better.    Every footstep fell As lightly as a sunbeam on the water. I think the girl extremely beautiful. Don C.    Almost beyond the privilege of woman! I saw her in the Prado yesterday. Her step was royal,--queen-like,--and her face As beautiful as a saint's in Paradise. Lara.    May not a saint fall from her Paradise, And be no more a saint? Don C.    Why do you ask? Lara.    Because I have heard it said this angel fell, And though she is a virgin outwardly, Within she is a sinner; like those panels Of doors and altar-pieces the old monks Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary On the outside, and on the inside Venus! Don C.    You do her wrong; indeed, you do her wrong! She is as virtuous as she is fair. Lara.    How credulous you are!    Why look you, friend, There's not a virtuous woman in Madrid, In this whole city!    And would you persuade me That a mere dancing-girl, who shows herself, Nightly, half naked, on the stage, for money, And with voluptuous motions fires the blood Of inconsiderate youth, is to be held A model for her virtue? Don C.    You forget She is a Gypsy girl. Lara.    And therefore won The easier. Don C.    Nay, not to be won at all! The only virtue that a Gypsy prizes Is chastity.    That is her only virtue. Dearer than life she holds it.    I remember A Gypsy woman, a vile, shameless bawd, Whose craft was to betray the young and fair; And yet this woman was above all bribes. And when a noble lord, touched by her beauty, The wild and wizard beauty of her race, Offered her gold to be what she made others, She turned upon him, with a look of scorn, And smote him in the face! Lara.    And does that prove That Preciosa is above suspicion? Don C.    It proves a nobleman may be repulsed When he thinks conquest easy.    I believe That woman, in her deepest degradation, Holds something sacred, something undefiled, Some pledge and keepsake of her higher nature, And, like the diamond in the dark, retains Some quenchless gleam of the celestial light! Lara.    Yet Preciosa would have taken the gold. Don C.    (rising).    I do not think so. Lara.    I am sure of it. But why this haste?    Stay yet a little longer, And fight the battles of your Dulcinea. Don C.    'T is late.    I must begone, for if I stay You will not be persuaded. Lara.    Yes; persuade me. Don C.    No one so deaf as he who will not hear! Lara.    No one so blind as he who will not see! Don C.    And so good night.    I wish you pleasant dreams, And greater faith in woman.    [Exit.] Lara.    Greater faith! I have the greatest faith; for I believe Victorian is her lover.    I believe That I shall be to-morrow; and thereafter Another, and another, and another, Chasing each other through her zodiac, As Taurus chases Aries. (Enter FRANCISCO with a casket.) Well, Francisco, What speed with Preciosa? Fran.    None, my lord. She sends your jewels back, and bids me tell you She is not to be purchased by your gold. Lara.    Then I will try some other way to win her. Pray, dost thou know Victorian? Fran.    Yes, my lord; I saw him at the jeweller's to-day. Lara.    What was he doing there? Fran.    I saw him buy A golden ring, that had a ruby in it. Lara.    Was there another like it? Fran.    One so like it I could not choose between them. Lara.    It is well. To-morrow morning bring that ring to me. Do not forget. Now light me to my bed. [Exeunt.] SCENE II. -- A street in Madrid.    Enter CHISPA, followed by musicians, with a bagpipe, guitars, and other instruments. Chispa.    Abernuncio Satanas! and a plague on all lovers who ramble    about at night, drinking the elements, instead of sleeping quietly in    their beds.    Every dead man to his cemetery, say I; and every friar to his monastery.    Now, here's my master, Victorian, yesterday a cow-keeper, and to-day a gentleman; yesterday a student, and to-day a lover; and I must be up later than the nightingale, for as the abbot sings so must the sacristan respond.    God grant he may soon be    married, for then shall all this serenading cease.    Ay, marry! marry!    marry! Mother, what does marry mean?    It means to spin, to bear children, and to weep, my daughter!    And, of a truth, there is something more in matrimony than the wedding-ring.    (To the musicians.)    And now, gentlemen, Pax vobiscum! as the ass said to the cabbages.    Pray, walk this way; and don't hang down your heads. It is no disgrace to have an old father and a ragged shirt.    Now, look you,    you are gentlemen who lead the life of crickets; you enjoy hunger by    day and noise by night.    Yet, I beseech you, for this once be not loud, but pathetic; for it is a serenade to a damsel in bed, and not to the Man in the Moon. Your object is not to arouse and terrify, but to soothe and bring lulling dreams.    Therefore, each shall not play upon his instrument as if it were the only one in the universe, but gently, and with a certain modesty, according with the others. Pray, how may I call thy name, friend? First Mus.    Geronimo Gil, at your service. Chispa.    Every tub smells of the wine that is in it.    Pray, Geronimo, is not Saturday an unpleasant day with thee? First Mus.    Why so? Chispa.    Because I have heard it said that Saturday is an unpleasant day with those who have but one shirt.    Moreover, I have seen thee at the tavern, and if thou canst run as fast as thou canst    drink, I should like to hunt hares with thee.    What instrument is that? First Mus.    An Aragonese bagpipe. Chispa.    Pray, art thou related to the bagpiper of Bujalance, who    asked a maravedi for playing, and ten for leaving off? First Mus.    No, your honor. Chispa.    I am glad of it.    What other instruments have we? Second and Third Musicians.    We play the bandurria. Chispa.    A pleasing instrument. And thou? Fourth Mus.    The fife. Chispa.    I like it; it has a cheerful, soul-stirring sound, that soars up to my lady's window like the song of a swallow. And you others? Other Mus.    We are the singers, please your honor. Chispa.    You are too many.    Do you think we are going to sing mass in the cathedral of Cordova?    Four men can make but little use of one shoe, and I see not how you can all sing in one song. But follow me along the garden wall.    That is the way my master climbs to the lady's window, it is by the Vicar's skirts that the Devil climbs into the belfry.    Come, follow me, and make no noise. [Exeunt.] SCENE III. -- PRECIOSA'S chamber. She stands at the open window. Prec.    How slowly through the lilac-scented air Descends the tranquil moon!    Like thistle-down The vapory clouds float in the peaceful sky; And sweetly from yon hollow vaults of shade The nightingales breathe out their souls in song. And hark! what songs of love, what soul-like sounds, Answer them from below! 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! (Enter VICTORIAN by the balcony.) Vict.    Poor little dove!    Thou tremblest like a leaf! Prec.    I am so frightened!    'T is for thee I tremble! I hate to have thee climb that wall by night! Did no one see thee? Vict.    None, my love, but thou. Prec. 'T is very dangerous; and when thou art gone I chide myself for letting thee come here Thus stealthily by night.    Where hast thou been? Since yesterday I have no news from thee. Vict.    Since yesterday I have been in Alcala. Erelong the time will come, sweet Preciosa, When that dull distance shall no more divide us; And I no more shall scale thy wall by night To steal a kiss from thee, as I do now. Prec.    An honest thief, to steal but what thou givest. Vict.    And we shall sit together unmolested, And words of true love pass from tongue to tongue, As singing birds from one bough to another. Prec.    That were a life to make time envious! I knew that thou wouldst come to me to-night. I saw thee at the play. Vict.    Sweet child of air! Never did I behold thee so attired And garmented in beauty as to-night! What hast thou done to make thee look so fair? Prec.    Am I not always fair? Vict.    Ay, and so fair That I am jealous of all eyes that see thee, And wish that they were blind. Prec.    I heed them not; When thou art present, I see none but thee! Vict.    There's nothing fair nor beautiful, but takes Something from thee, that makes it beautiful. Prec.    And yet thou leavest me for those dusty books. Vict.    Thou comest between me and those books too often! I see thy face in everything I see! The paintings in the chapel wear thy looks, The canticles are changed to sarabands, And with the leaned doctors of the schools I see thee dance cachuchas. Prec.    In good sooth, I dance with learned doctors of the schools To-morrow morning. Vict.    And with whom, I pray? Prec.    A grave and reverend Cardinal, and his Grace The Archbishop of Toledo. Vict.    What mad jest Is this? Prec.    It is no jest; indeed it is not. Vict.    Prithee, explain thyself. Prec.    Why, simply thus. Thou knowest the Pope has sent here into Spain To put a stop to dances on the stage. Vict.    I have heard it whispered. Prec.    Now the Cardinal, Who for this purpose comes, would fain behold With his own eyes these dances; and the Archbishop Has sent for me-- Vict.    That thou mayst dance before them! Now viva la cachucha!    It will breathe The fire of youth into these gray old men! 'T will be thy proudest conquest! Prec.    Saving one. And yet I fear these dances will be stopped, And Preciosa be once more a beggar. Vict.    The sweetest beggar that e'er asked for alms; With such beseeching eyes, that when I saw thee I gave my heart away! Prec.    Dost thou remember When first we met? Vict.    It was at Cordova, In the cathedral garden. Thou wast sitting Under the orange-trees, beside a fountain. Prec. 'T was Easter-Sunday.    The full-blossomed trees Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy. The priests were singing, and the organ sounded, And then anon the great cathedral bell. It was the elevation of the Host. We both of us fell down upon our knees, Under the orange boughs, and prayed together. I never had been happy till that moment. Vict.    Thou blessed angel! Prec.    And when thou wast gone I felt an acting here.    I did not speak To any one that day.    But from that day Bartolome grew hateful unto me. Vict.    Remember him no more.    Let not his shadow Come between thee and me.    Sweet Preciosa! I loved thee even then, though I was silent! Prec.    I thought I ne'er should see thy face again. Thy farewell had a sound of sorrow in it. Vict.    That was the first sound in the song of love! Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound. Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings Of that mysterious instrument, the soul, And play the prelude of our fate.    We hear The voice prophetic, and are not alone. Prec.    That is my faith.    Dust thou believe these warnings? Vict.    So far as this.    Our feelings and our thoughts Tend ever on, and rest not in the Present. As drops of rain fall into some dark well, And from below comes a scarce audible sound, So fall our thoughts into the dark Hereafter, And their mysterious echo reaches us. Prec.    I have felt it so, but found no words to say it! I cannot reason; I can only feel! But thou hast language for all thoughts and feelings. Thou art a scholar; and sometimes I think We cannot walk together in this world! The distance that divides us is too great! Henceforth thy pathway lies among the stars; I must not hold thee back. Vict.    Thou little sceptic! Dost thou still doubt?    What I most prize in woman Is her affections, not her intellect! The intellect is finite; but the affections Are infinite, and cannot be exhausted. Compare me with the great men of the earth; What am I?    Why, a pygmy among giants! But if thou lovest,--mark me! I say lovest, The greatest of thy sex excels thee not! The world of the affections is thy world, Not that of man's ambition.    In that stillness Which most becomes a woman, calm and holy, Thou sittest by the fireside of the heart, Feeding its flame.    The element of fire Is pure.    It cannot change nor hide its nature, But burns as brightly in a Gypsy camp As in a palace hall.    Art thou convinced? Prec.    Yes, that I love thee, as the good love heaven; But not that I am worthy of that heaven. How shall I more deserve it? Vict.    Loving more. Prec.    I cannot love thee more; my heart is full. Vict.    Then let it overflow, and I will drink it, As in the summer-time the thirsty sands Drink the swift waters of the Manzanares, And still do thirst for more. A    Watchman (in the street).    Ave Maria Purissima!    'T is midnight and serene! Vict.    Hear'st thou that cry? Prec.    It is a hateful sound, To scare thee from me! Vict.    As the hunter's horn Doth scare the timid stag, or bark of hounds The moor-fowl from his mate. Prec.    Pray, do not go! Vict.    I must away to Alcala to-night. Think of me when I am away. Prec.    Fear not! I have no thoughts that do not think of thee. Vict.    (giving her a ring). And to remind thee of my love, take this; A serpent, emblem of Eternity; A ruby,--say, a drop of my heart's blood. Prec.    It is an ancient saying, that the ruby Brings gladness to the wearer, and preserves The heart pure, and, if laid beneath the pillow, Drives away evil dreams.    But then, alas! It was a serpent tempted Eve to sin. Vict.    What convent of barefooted Carmelites Taught thee so much theology? Prec. (laying her hand upon his mouth).    Hush! hush! Good night! and may all holy angels guard thee! Vict.    Good night! good night!    Thou art my guardian angel! I have no other saint than thou to pray to! (He descends by the balcony.) Prec.    Take care, and do not hurt thee.    Art thou safe? Vict.    (from the garden). Safe as my love for thee!    But art thou safe? Others can climb a balcony by moonlight As well as I.    Pray shut thy window close; I am jealous of the perfumed air of night That from this garden climbs to kiss thy lips. Prec.    (throwing down her handkerchief). Thou silly child!    Take this to blind thine eyes. It is my benison! Vict.    And brings to me Sweet fragrance from thy lips, as the soft wind Wafts to the out-bound mariner the breath Of the beloved land he leaves behind. Prec.    Make not thy voyage long. Vict.    To-morrow night Shall see me safe returned.    Thou art the star To guide me to an anchorage.    Good night! My beauteous star!    My star of love, good night! Prec. Good night! Watchman (at a distance).    Ave Maria Purissima! Scene IV. -- An inn on the road to Alcala. BALTASAR asleep on a bench.    Enter CHISPA. Chispa.    And here we are, halfway to Alcala, between cocks and midnight.    Body o' me! what an inn this is!    The lights out, and the    landlord asleep.    Hola! ancient Baltasar! Bal. (waking).    Here I am. Chispa.    Yes, there you are, like a one-eyed Alcalde in a town without inhabitants.    Bring a light, and let me have supper. Bal.    Where is your master? Chispo.    Do not trouble yourself about him.    We have stopped a moment to breathe our horses; and, if he chooses to walk up and down in the open air, looking into the sky as one who hears it rain, that does not satisfy my hunger, you know.    But be quick, for I am in a hurry, and every man stretches his legs according to the length of his coverlet.    What have we here? Bal. (setting a light on the table).    Stewed rabbit. Chispa (eating).    Conscience of Portalegre! Stewed kitten, you mean! Bal.    And a pitcher of Pedro Ximenes, with a roasted pear in it. Chispa (drinking).    Ancient Baltasar, amigo!    You know how to cry wine and sell vinegar.    I tell you this is nothing but Vino Tinto of La Mancha, with a tang of the swine-skin. Bal.    I swear to you by Saint Simon and Judas, it is all as I say. Chispa.    And I swear to you by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, that it is no such thing.    Moreover, your supper is like the hidalgo's dinner, very little meat and a great deal of tablecloth. Bal.    Ha! ha! ha! Chispa. And more noise than nuts. Bal.    Ha! ha! ha!    You must have your joke, Master Chispa.    But shall I not ask Don Victorian in, to take a draught of the Pedro Ximenes? Chispa.    No; you might as well say, "Don't-you-want-some?" to a dead man. Bal.    Why does he go so often to Madrid? Chispa.    For the same reason that he eats no supper.    He is in love.    Were you ever in love, Baltasar? Bal.    I was never out of it, good Chispa.    It has been the torment of my life. Chispa.    What! are you on fire, too, old hay-stack?    Why, we shall never be able to put you out. Vict. (without).    Chispa! Chispa.    Go to bed, Pero Grullo, for the cocks are crowing. Vict.    Ea! Chispa! Chispa! Chispa.    Ea! Senor.    Come with me, ancient Baltasar, and bring water for the horses.    I will pay for the supper tomorrow. [Exeunt.] SCENE V. -- VICTORIAN'S chambers at    Alcala.    HYPOLITO asleep in an arm-chair.    He awakes slowly. Hyp.    I must have been asleep! ay, sound asleep! And it was all a dream.    O sleep, sweet sleep Whatever form thou takest, thou art fair, Holding unto our lips thy goblet filled Out of Oblivion's well, a healing draught! The candles have burned low; it must be late. Where can Victorian be?    Like Fray Carrillo, The only place in which one cannot find him Is his own cell.    Here's his guitar, that seldom Feels the caresses of its master's hand. Open thy silent lips, sweet instrument! And make dull midnight merry with a song. (He plays and sings.) Padre Francisco! Padre Francisco! What do you want of Padre Francisco? Here is a pretty young maiden Who wants to confess her sins! Open the door and let her come in, I will shrive her from every sin. (Enter VICTORIAN.) Vict.    Padre Hypolito!    Padre Hypolito! Hyp.    What do you want of Padre Hypolito? Vict.    Come, shrive me straight; for, if love be a sin, I am the greatest sinner that doth live. I will confess the sweetest of all crimes, A maiden wooed and won. Hyp.    The same old tale Of the old woman in the chimney-corner, Who, while the pot boils, says, "Come here, my child; I'll tell thee a story of my wedding-day." Vict.    Nay, listen, for my heart is full; so full That I must speak. Hyp.    Alas! that heart of thine Is like a scene in the old play; the curtain Rises to solemn music, and lo! enter The eleven thousand virgins of Cologne! Vict.    Nay, like the Sibyl's volumes, thou shouldst say; Those that remained, after the six were burned, Being held more precious than the nine together. But listen to my tale.    Dost thou remember The Gypsy girl we saw at Cordova Dance the Romalis in the market-place? Hyp.    Thou meanest Preciosa. Vict.    Ay, the same. Thou knowest how her image haunted me Long after we returned to Alcala. She's in Madrid. Hyp.    I know it. Vict.    And I'm in love. Hyp.    And therefore in Madrid when thou shouldst be In Alcala. Vict.    O pardon me, my friend, If I so long have kept this secret from thee; But silence is the charm that guards such treasures, And, if a word be spoken ere the time, They sink again, they were not meant for us. Hyp.    Alas! alas!    I see thou art in love. Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak. It serves for food and raiment.    Give a Spaniard His mass, his olla, and his Dona Luisa-- Thou knowest the proverb.    But pray tell me, lover, How speeds thy wooing?    Is the maiden coy? Write her a song, beginning with an Ave; Sing as the monk sang to the Virgin Mary, Ave! cujus calcem clare Nec centenni commendare Sciret Seraph studio! Vict.    Pray, do not jest!    This is no time for it! I am in earnest! Hyp.    Seriously enamored? What, ho!    The Primus of great Alcala Enamored of a Gypsy?    Tell me frankly, How meanest thou? Vict.    I mean it honestly. Hyp.    Surely thou wilt not marry her! Vict.    Why not? Hyp.    She was betrothed to one Bartolome, If I remember rightly, a young Gypsy Who danced with her at Cordova. Vict.    They quarrelled, And so the matter ended. Hyp.    But in truth Thou wilt not marry her. Vict.    In truth I will. The angels sang in heaven when she was born! She is a precious jewel I have found Among the filth and rubbish of the world. I'll stoop for it; but when I wear it here, Set on my forehead like the morning star, The world may wonder, but it will not laugh. Hyp.    If thou wear'st nothing else upon thy forehead, 'T will be indeed a wonder. Vict.    Out upon thee With thy unseasonable jests!    Pray tell me, Is there no virtue in the world? Hyp.    Not much. What, think'st thou, is she doing at this moment; Now, while we speak of her? Vict.    She lies asleep, And from her parted lips her gentle breath Comes like the fragrance from the lips of flowers. Her tender limbs are still, and on her breast The cross she prayed to, ere she fell asleep, Rises and falls with the soft tide of dreams, Like a light barge safe moored. Hyp.    Which means, in prose, She's sleeping with her mouth a little open! Vict.    O, would I had the old magician's glass To see her as she lies in childlike sleep! Hyp.    And wouldst thou venture? Vict.    Ay, indeed I would! Hyp.    Thou art courageous.    Hast thou e'er reflected How much lies hidden in that one word, NOW? Vict.    Yes; all the awful mystery of Life! I oft have thought, my dear Hypolito, That could we, by some spell of magic, change The world and its inhabitants to stone, In the same attitudes they now are in, What fearful glances downward might we cast Into the hollow chasms of human life! What groups should we behold about the death-bed, Putting to shame the group of Niobe! What joyful welcomes, and what sad farewells! What stony tears in those congealed eyes! What visible joy or anguish in those cheeks! What bridal pomps, and what funereal shows! What foes, like gladiators, fierce and struggling! What lovers with their marble lips together! Hyp.    Ay, there it is! and, if I were in love, That is the very point I most should dread. This magic glass, these magic spells of thine, Might tell a tale were better left untold. For instance, they might show us thy fair cousin, The Lady Violante, bathed in tears Of love and anger, like the maid of Colchis, Whom thou, another faithless Argonaut, Having won that golden fleece, a woman's love, Desertest for this Glauce. Vict.    Hold thy peace! She cares not for me.    She may wed another, Or go into a convent, and, thus dying, Marry Achilles in the Elysian Fields. Hyp. (rising).    And so, good night!    Good morning, I should say. (Clock strikes three.) Hark! how the loud and ponderous mace of Time Knocks at the golden portals of the day! And so, once more, good night!    We'll speak more largely Of Preciosa when we meet again. Get thee to bed, and the magician, Sleep, Shall show her to thee, in his magic glass, In all her loveliness.    Good night! [Exit.] Vict.    Good night! But not to bed; for I must read awhile. (Throws himself into the arm-chair which HYPOLITO has left, and lays a large book open upon his knees.) Must read, or sit in revery and watch The changing color of the waves that break Upon the idle sea-shore of the mind! Visions of Fame! that once did visit me, Making night glorious with your smile, where are ye? O, who shall give me, now that ye are gone, Juices of those immortal plants that bloom Upon Olympus, making us immortal? Or teach me where that wondrous mandrake grows Whose magic root, torn from the earth with groans, At midnight hour, can scare the fiends away, And make the mind prolific in its fancies! I have the wish, but want the will, to act! Souls of great men departed!    Ye whose words Have come to light from the swift river of Time, Like Roman swords found in the Tagus' bed, Where is the strength to wield the arms ye bore? From the barred visor of Antiquity Reflected shines the eternal light of Truth, As from a mirror!    All the means of action-- The shapeless masses, the materials-- Lie everywhere about us.    What we need Is the celestial fire to change the flint Into transparent crystal, bright and clear. That fire is genius!    The rude peasant sits At evening in his smoky cot, and draws With charcoal uncouth figures on the wall. The son of genius comes, foot-sore with travel, And begs a shelter from the inclement night. He takes the charcoal from the peasant's hand, And, by the magic of his touch at once Transfigured, all its hidden virtues shine, And, in the eyes of the astonished clown, It gleams a diamond!    Even thus transformed, Rude popular traditions and old tales Shine as immortal poems, at the touch Of some poor, houseless, homeless, wandering bard, Who had but a night's lodging for his pains. But there are brighter dreams than those of Fame, Which are the dreams of Love!    Out of the heart Rises the bright ideal of these dreams, As from some woodland fount a spirit rises And sinks again into its silent deeps, Ere the enamored knight can touch her robe! 'T is this ideal that the soul of man, Like the enamored knight beside the fountain, Waits for upon the margin of Life's stream; Waits to behold her rise from the dark waters, Clad in a mortal shape!    Alas! how many Must wait in vain!    The stream flows evermore, But from its silent deeps no spirit rises! Yet I, born under a propitious star, Have found the bright ideal of my dreams. Yes! she is ever with me.    I can feel, Here, as I sit at midnight and alone, Her gentle breathing! on my breast can feel The pressure of her head!    God's benison Rest ever on it!    Close those beauteous eyes, Sweet Sleep! and all the flowers that bloom at night With balmy lips breathe in her ears my name! (Gradually sinks asleep.) ACT II. SCENE I. -- PRECIOSA'S chamber.    Morning.    PRECIOSA and ANGELICA. Prec.    Why will you go so soon?    Stay yet awhile. The poor too often turn away unheard From hearts that shut against them with a sound That will be heard in heaven.    Pray, tell me more Of your adversities.    Keep nothing from me. What is your landlord's name? Ang.    The Count of Lara. Prec.    The Count of Lara?    O, beware that man! Mistrust his pity,--hold no parley with him! And rather die an outcast in the streets Than touch his gold. Ang.    You know him, then! Prec.    As much As any woman may, and yet be pure. As you would keep your name without a blemish, Beware of him! Ang.    Alas! what can I do? I cannot choose my friends.    Each word of kindness, Come whence it may, is welcome to the poor. Prec.    Make me your friend.    A girl so young and fair Should have no friends but those of her own sex. What is your name? Ang.    Angelica. Prec.    That name Was given you, that you might be an angel To her who bore you!    When your infant smile Made her home Paradise, you were her angel. O, be an angel still!    She needs that smile. So long as you are innocent, fear nothing. No one can harm you!    I am a poor girl, Whom chance has taken from the public streets. I have no other shield than mine own virtue. That is the charm which has protected me! Amid a thousand perils, I have worn it Here on my heart!    It is my guardian angel. Ang. (rising).    I thank you for this counsel, dearest lady. Prec.    Thank me by following it. Ang.    Indeed I will. Prec.    Pray, do not go.    I have much more to say. Ang.    My mother is alone.    I dare not leave her. Prec.    Some other time, then, when we meet again. You must not go away with words alone. (Gives her a purse.) Take this.    Would it were more. Ang.    I thank you, lady. Prec.    No thanks.    To-morrow come to me again. I dance to-night,--perhaps for the last time. But what I gain, I promise shall be yours, If that can save you from the Count of Lara. Ang.    O, my dear lady! how shall I be grateful For so much kindness? Prec.    I    deserve no thanks, Thank Heaven, not me. Ang.    Both Heaven and you. Prec.    Farewell. Remember that you come again tomorrow. Ang.    I will.    And may the Blessed Virgin guard you, And all good angels.    [Exit.] Prec.    May they guard thee too, And all the poor; for they have need of angels. Now    bring me, dear Dolores, my basquina, My richest maja dress,--my dancing dress, And my most precious jewels!    Make me look Fairer than night e'er saw me!    I've a prize To win this day, worthy of Preciosa! (Enter BELTRAN CRUZADO.) Cruz.    Ave Maria! Prec.    O God! my evil genius! What seekest thou here to-day? Cruz.    Thyself,--my child. Prec.    What is thy will with me? Cruz.    Gold! gold! Prec.    I gave thee yesterday; I have no more. Cruz.    The gold of the Busne,--give me his gold! Prec.    I gave the last in charity to-day. Cruz.    That is a foolish lie. Prec.    It is the truth. Cruz.    Curses upon thee!    Thou art not my child! Hast thou given gold away, and not to me? Not to thy father?    To whom, then? Prec.    To one Who needs it more. Cruz.    No one can need it more. Prec.    Thou art not poor. Cruz.    What, I, who lurk about In dismal suburbs and unwholesome lanes I, who am housed worse than the galley slave; I, who am fed worse than the kennelled hound; I, who am clothed in rags,--Beltran Cruzado,-- Not poor! Prec. Thou hast a stout heart and strong hands. Thou canst supply thy wants; what wouldst thou more? Cruz.    The gold of the Busne! give me his gold! Prec.    Beltran Cruzado! hear me once for all. I speak the truth.    So long as I had gold, I gave it to thee freely, at all times, Never denied thee; never had a wish But to fulfil thine own.    Now go in peace! Be merciful, be patient, and ere long Thou shalt have more. Cruz.    And if I have it not, Thou shalt no longer dwell here in rich chambers, Wear silken dresses, feed on dainty food, And live in idleness; but go with me, Dance the Romalis in the public streets, And wander wild again o'er field and fell; For here we stay not long. Prec.    What! march again? Cruz.    Ay, with all speed. I hate the crowded town! I cannot breathe shut up within its gates Air,--I want air, and sunshine, and blue sky, The feeling of the breeze upon my face, The feeling of the turf beneath my feet, And no walls but the far-off mountain-tops. Then I am free and strong,--once more myself, Beltran Cruzado, Count of the Cales! Prec.    God speed thee on thy march!--I cannot go. Cruz.    Remember who I am, and who thou art Be silent and obey! Yet one thing more. Bartolome Roman-- Prec. (with emotion).    O, I beseech thee If my obedience and blameless life, If my humility and meek submission In all things hitherto, can move in thee One feeling of compassion; if thou art Indeed my father, and canst trace in me One look of her who bore me, or one tone That doth remind thee of her, let it plead In my behalf, who am a feeble girl, Too feeble to resist, and do not force me To wed that man!    I am afraid of him! I do not love him! On my knees I beg thee To use no violence, nor do in haste What cannot be undone! Cruz.    O child, child, child! Thou hast betrayed thy secret, as a bird Betrays her nest, by striving to conceal it. I will not leave thee here in the great city To be a grandee's mistress.    Make thee ready To go with us; and until then remember A watchful eye is on thee.    [Exit. Prec.    Woe is me! I have a strange misgiving in my heart! But that one deed of charity I'll do, Befall what may; they cannot take that from me. SCENE II --    A room in the ARCHBISHOP'S Palace. The ARCHBISHOP and a CARDINAL seated. Arch.    Knowing how near it touched the public morals, And that our age is grown corrupt and rotten By such excesses, we have sent to Rome, Beseeching that his Holiness would aid In curing the gross surfeit of the time, By seasonable stop put here in Spain To bull-fights and lewd dances on the stage. All this you know. Card.    Know and approve. Arch.    And further, That, by a mandate from his Holiness, The first have been suppressed. Card.    I trust forever. It was a cruel sport. Arch.    A barbarous pastime, Disgraceful to the land that calls itself Most Catholic and Christian. Card.    Yet the people Murmur at this; and, if the public dances Should be condemned upon too slight occasion, Worse ills might follow than the ills we cure. As Panem et Circenses was the cry Among the Roman populace of old, So Pan y Toros is the cry in Spain. Hence I would act advisedly herein; And therefore have induced your Grace to see These national dances, ere we interdict them. (Enter a Servant) Serv.    The dancing-girl, and with her the musicians Your Grace was pleased to order, wait without. Arch.    Bid them come in.    Now shall your eyes behold In what angelic, yet voluptuous shape The Devil came to tempt Saint Anthony. (Enter PRECIOSA, with a mantle thrown over her head.    She advances slowly, in modest, half-timid attitude.) Card. (aside).    O, what a fair and ministering angel Was lost to heaven when this sweet woman fell! Prec. (kneeling before the ARCHBISHOP). I have obeyed the order of your Grace. If I intrude upon your better hours, I proffer this excuse, and here beseech Your holy benediction. Arch.    May God bless thee, And lead thee to a better life.    Arise. Card. (aside).    Her acts are modest, and her words discreet! I did not look for this!    Come hither, child. Is thy name Preciosa? Prec.    Thus I am called. Card.    That is a Gypsy name.    Who is thy father? Prec.    Beltran Cruzado, Count of the Cales. Arch.    I have a dim remembrance of that man: He was a bold and reckless character, A sun-burnt Ishmael! Card.    Dost thou remember Thy earlier days? Prec.    Yes; by the Darro's side My childhood passed.    I can remember still The river, and the mountains capped with snow The village, where, yet a little child, I told the traveller's fortune in the street; The smuggler's horse, the brigand and the shepherd; The march across the moor; the halt at noon; The red fire of the evening camp, that lighted The forest where we slept; and, further back, As in a dream or in some former life, Gardens and palace walls. Arch.    'T is the Alhambra, Under whose towers the Gypsy camp was pitched. But the time wears; and we would see thee dance. Prec.    Your Grace shall be obeyed. (She lays aside her mantilla.    The music of the cachucha is played, and the dance begins.    The ARCHBISHOP and the CARDINAL look on with gravity and an occasional frown; then make signs to each other; and, as the dance continues, become more and more pleased and excited; and at length rise from their seats, throw their caps in the air, and applaud vehemently as the scene closes.) SCENE III. -- The Prado.    A long avenue of trees leading to the gate of Atocha.    On the right the dome and spires of a convent. A fountain. Evening, DON CARLOS and HYPOLITO meeting. Don C.    Hola! good evening, Don Hypolito. Hyp.    And a good evening to my friend, Don Carlos. Some lucky star has led my steps this way. I was in search of you. Don. C.    Command me always. Hyp. Do you remember, in Quevedo's Dreams, The miser, who, upon the Day of Judgment, Asks if his money-bags would rise? Don C.    I do; But what of that? Hyp.    I am that wretched man. Don C.    You mean to tell me yours have risen empty? Hyp.    And amen! said my Cid the Campeador. Don C.    Pray, how much need you? Hyp.    Some half-dozen ounces, Which, with due interest-- Don C. (giving his purse).    What, am I a Jew To put my moneys out at usury? Here is my purse. Hyp.    Thank you.    A pretty purse. Made by the hand of some fair Madrilena; Perhaps a keepsake. Don C.    No, 't is at your service. Hyp.    Thank you again.    Lie there, good Chrysostom, And with thy golden mouth remind me often, I am the debtor of my friend. Don C.    But tell me, Come you to-day from Alcala? Hyp.    This moment. Don C.    And pray, how fares the brave Victorian? Hyp.    Indifferent well; that is to say, not well. A damsel has ensnared him with the glances Of her dark, roving eyes, as herdsmen catch A steer of Andalusia with a lazo. He is in love. Don C.    And is it faring ill To be in love? Hyp.    In his case very ill. Don C.    Why so? Hyp.    For many reasons.    First and foremost, Because he is in love with an ideal; A creature of his own imagination; A child of air; an echo of his heart; And, like a lily on a river floating, She floats upon the river of his thoughts! Don C.    A common thing with poets.    But who is This floating lily?    For, in fine, some woman, Some living woman,--not a mere ideal,-- Must wear the outward semblance of his thought. Who is it?    Tell me. Hyp.    Well, it is a woman! But, look you, from the coffer of his heart He brings forth precious jewels to adorn her, As pious priests adorn some favorite saint With gems and gold, until at length she gleams One blaze of glory.    Without these, you know, And the priest's benediction, 't is a doll. Don C.    Well, well! who is this doll? Hyp.    Why, who do you think? Don C.    His cousin Violante. Hyp.    Guess again. To ease his laboring heart, in the last storm He threw her overboard, with all her ingots. Don C.    I cannot guess; so tell me who it is. Hyp.    Not I. Don. C.    Why not? Hyp. (mysteriously).    Why?    Because Mari Franca Was married four leagues out of Salamanca! Don C.    Jesting aside, who is it? Hyp.    Preciosa. Don C.    Impossible!    The Count of Lara tells me She is not virtuous. Hyp.    Did I say she was? The Roman Emperor Claudius had a wife Whose name was Messalina, as I think; Valeria Messalina was her name. But hist! I see him yonder through the trees, Walking as in a dream. Don C.    He comes this way. Hyp.    It has been truly said by some wise man, That money, grief, and love cannot be hidden. (Enter VICTORIAN in front.) Vict.    Where'er thy step has passed is holy ground! These groves are sacred!    I behold thee walking Under these shadowy trees, where we have walked At evening, and I feel thy presence now; Feel that the place has taken a charm from thee, And is forever hallowed. Hyp.    Mark him well! See how he strides away with lordly air, Like that odd guest of stone, that grim Commander Who comes to sup with Juan in the play. Don C.    What ho!    Victorian! Hyp.    Wilt thou sup with us? Vict.    Hola! amigos!    Faith, I did not see you. How fares Don Carlos? Don C.    At your service ever. Vict.    How is that young and green-eyed Gaditana That you both wot of? Don C.    Ay, soft, emerald eyes! She has gone back to Cadiz. Hyp.    Ay de mi! Vict.    You are much to blame for letting her go back. A pretty girl; and in her tender eyes Just that soft shade of green we sometimes see In evening skies. Hyp.    But, speaking of green eyes, Are thine green? Vict.    Not a whit.    Why so? Hyp.    I think The slightest shade of green would be becoming, For thou art jealous. Vid.    No, I am not jealous. Hyp.    Thou shouldst be. Vict.    Why? Hyp.    Because thou art in love. And they who are in love are always jealous. Therefore thou shouldst be. Vict.    Marry, is that all? Farewell; I am in haste.    Farewell, Don Carlos. Thou sayest I should be jealous? Hyp.    Ay, in truth I fear there is reason.    Be upon thy guard. I hear it whispered that the Count of Lara Lays siege to the same citadel. Vict.    Indeed! Then he will have his labor for his pains. Hyp.    He does not think so, and Don Carlos tells me He boasts of his success. Vict.    How's this, Don Carlos? Don. C.    Some hints of it I heard from his own lips. He spoke but lightly of the lady's virtue, As a gay man might speak. Vict.    Death and damnation! I'll cut his lying tongue out of his mouth, And throw it to my dog!    But no, no, no! This cannot be.    You jest, indeed you jest. Trifle with me no more.    For otherwise We are no longer friends.    And so, fare well! [Exit. Hyp.    Now what a coil is here!    The Avenging Child Hunting the traitor Quadros to his death, And the Moor Calaynos, when he rode To Paris for the ears of Oliver, Were nothing to him!    O hot-headed youth! But come; we will not follow.    Let us join The crowd that pours into the Prado.    There We shall find merrier company; I see The Marialonzos and the Almavivas, And fifty fans, that beckon me already. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. -- PRECIOSA'S chamber.    She is sitting, with a book in her hand, near a table, on which are flowers.    A bird singing in its cage. The COUNT OF LARA enters behind unperceived. Prec. (reads). All are sleeping, weary heart! Thou, thou only sleepless art! Heigho! I wish Victorian were here. I know not what it is makes me so restless! (The bird sings.) Thou little prisoner with thy motley coat, That from thy vaulted, wiry dungeon singest, Like thee I am a captive, and, like thee, I have a gentle jailer.    Lack-a-day! All are sleeping, weary heart! Thou, thou only sleepless art! All this throbbing, all this aching, Evermore shall keep thee waking, For a heart in sorrow breaking Thinketh ever of its smart! Thou speakest truly, poet! and methinks More hearts are breaking in this world of ours Than one would say.    In distant villages And solitudes remote, where winds have wafted The barbed seeds of love, or birds of passage Scattered them in their flight, do they take root, And grow in silence, and in silence perish. Who hears the falling of the forest leaf? Or who takes note of every flower that dies? Heigho! I wish Victorian would come. Dolores! (Turns to lay down her boot and perceives the COUNT.) Ha! Lara.    Senora, pardon me. Prec.    How's this?    Dolores! Lara.    Pardon me-- Prec.    Dolores! Lara.    Be not alarmed; I found no one in waiting. If I have been too bold-- Prec. (turning her back upon him).    You are too bold! Retire! retire, and leave me! Lara.    My dear lady, First hear me!    I beseech you, let me speak! 'T is for your good I come. Prec. (turning toward him with indignation).    Begone! begone! You are the Count of Lara, but your deeds Would make the statues of your ancestors Blush on their tombs!    Is it Castilian honor, Is it Castilian pride, to steal in here Upon a friendless girl, to do her wrong? O shame! shame! shame! that you, a nobleman, Should be so little noble in your thoughts As to send jewels here to win my love, And think to buy my honor with your gold! I have no words to tell you how I scorn you! Begone!    The sight of you is hateful to me! Begone, I say! Lara.    Be calm; I will not harm you. Prec.    Because you dare not. Lara.    I dare anything! Therefore beware!    You are deceived in me. In this false world, we do not always know Who are our friends and who our enemies. We all have enemies, and all need friends. Even you, fair Preciosa, here at court Have foes, who seek to wrong you. Prec.    If to this I owe the honor of the present visit, You might have spared the coming.    Raving spoken, Once more I beg you, leave me to myself. Lara.    I thought it but a friendly part to tell you What strange reports are current here in town. For my own self, I do not credit them; But there are many who, not knowing you, Will lend a readier ear. Prec.    There was no need That you should take upon yourself the duty Of telling me these tales. Lara.    Malicious tongues Are ever busy with your name. Prec.    Alas! I've no protectors.    I am a poor girl, Exposed to insults and unfeeling jests. They wound me, yet I cannot shield myself. I give no cause for these reports.    I live Retired; am visited by none. Lara.    By none? O, then, indeed, you are much wronged! Prec.    How mean you? Lara.    Nay, nay; I will not wound your gentle soul By the report of idle tales. Prec.    Speak out! What are these idle tales? You need not spare me. Lara.    I will deal frankly with you.    Pardon me This window, as I think, looks toward the street, And this into the Prado, does it not? In yon high house, beyond the garden wall,-- You see the roof there just above the trees,-- There lives a friend, who told me yesterday, That on a certain night,--be not offended If I too plainly speak,--he saw a man Climb to your chamber window.    You are silent! I would not blame you, being young and fair-- (He tries to embrace her. She starts back, and draws a dagger from her bosom.) Prec.    Beware! beware!    I am a Gypsy girl! Lay not your hand upon me.    One step nearer And I will strike! Lara.    Pray you, put up that dagger. Fear not. Prec. I do not fear.    I have a heart In whose strength I can trust. Lara.    Listen to me I come here as your friend,--I am your friend,-- And by a single word can put a stop To all those idle tales, and make your name Spotless as lilies are.    Here on my knees, Fair Preciosa! on my knees I swear, I love you even to madness, and that love Has driven me to break the rules of custom, And force myself unasked into your presence. (VICTORIAN enters behind.) Prec.    Rise, Count of Lara!    That is not the place For such as you are.    It becomes you not To kneel before me.    I am strangely moved To see one of your rank thus low and humbled; For your sake I will put aside all anger, All unkind feeling, all dislike, and speak In gentleness, as most becomes a woman, And as my heart now prompts me.    I no more Will hate you, for all hate is painful to me. But if, without offending modesty And that reserve which is a woman's glory, I may speak freely, I will teach my heart To love you. Lara.    O sweet angel! Prec.    Ay, in truth, Far better than you love yourself or me. Lara.    Give me some sign of this,--the slightest token. Let me but kiss your hand! Prec.    Nay, come no nearer. The words I utter are its sign and token. Misunderstand me not!    Be not deceived! The love wherewith I love you is not such As you would offer me.    For you come here To take from me the only thing I have, My honor.    You are wealthy, you have friends And kindred, and a thousand pleasant hopes That fill your heart with happiness; but I Am poor, and friendless, having but one treasure, And you would take that from me, and for what? To flatter your own vanity, and make me What you would most despise.    O sir, such love, That seeks to harm me, cannot be true love. Indeed it cannot.    But my love for you Is of a different kind.    It seeks your good. It is a holier feeling.    It rebukes Your earthly passion, your unchaste desires, And bids you look into your heart, and see How you do wrong that better nature in you, And grieve your soul with sin. Lara.    I swear to you, I would not harm you; I would only love you. I would not take your honor, but restore it, And in return I ask but some slight mark Of your affection.    If indeed you love me, As you confess you do, O let me thus With this embrace-- Vict. (rushing forward).    Hold! hold!    This is too much. What means this outrage? Lara.    First, what right have you To question thus a nobleman of Spain? Vict.    I too am noble, and you are no more! Out of my sight! Lara.    Are you the master here? Vict.    Ay, here and elsewhere, when the wrong of others Gives me the right! Prec. (to LARA).    Go! I beseech you, go! Vict.    I shall have business with you, Count, anon! Lara.    You cannot come too soon! [Exit. Prec.    Victorian! O, we have been betrayed! Vict.    Ha! ha! betrayed! 'T is I have been betrayed, not we!--not we! Prec.    Dost thou imagine-- Vict.    I imagine nothing; I see how 't is thou whilest the time away When I am gone! Prec.    O speak not in that tone! It wounds me deeply. Vict.    'T was not meant to flatter. Prec.    Too well thou knowest the presence of that man Is hateful to me! Vict.    Yet I saw thee stand And listen to him, when he told his love. Prec.    I did not heed his words. Vict.    Indeed thou didst, And answeredst them with love. Prec.    Hadst thou heard all-- Vict.    I heard enough. Prec.    Be not so angry with me. Vict.    I am not angry; I am very calm. Prec.    If thou wilt let me speak-- Vict.    Nay, say no more. I know too much already.    Thou art false! I do not like these Gypsy marriages! Where is the ring I gave thee? Prec.    In my casket. Vict.    There let it rest!    I would not have thee wear it: I thought thee spotless, and thou art polluted! Prec.    I call the Heavens to witness-- Vict.    Nay, nay, nay! Take not the name of Heaven upon thy lips! They are forsworn! Prec.    Victorian! dear Victorian! Vict.    I gave up all for thee; myself, my fame, My hopes of fortune, ay, my very soul! And thou hast been my ruin!    Now, go on! Laugh at my folly with thy paramour, And, sitting on the Count of Lara's knee, Say what a poor, fond fool Victorian was! (He casts her from him and rushes out.) Prec.    And this from thee! (Scene closes.) SCENE V. -- The COUNT OF LARA'S rooms.    Enter the COUNT. Lara.    There's nothing in this world so sweet as love, And next to love the sweetest thing is hate! I've learned to hate, and therefore am revenged. A silly girl to play the prude with me! The fire that I have kindled-- (Enter FRANCISCO.) Well, Francisco, What tidings from Don Juan? Fran.    Good, my lord; He will be present. Lara.    And the Duke of Lermos? Fran.    Was not at home. Lara.    How with the rest? Fran.    I've found The men you wanted.    They will all be there, And at the given signal raise a whirlwind Of such discordant noises, that the dance Must cease for lack of music. Lara.    Bravely done. Ah! little dost thou dream, sweet Preciosa, What lies in wait for thee.    Sleep shall not close Thine eyes this night!    Give me my cloak and sword. [Exeunt. SCENE VI. -- A retired spot beyond the city gates.    Enter VICTORIAN and HYPOLITO. Vict.    O shame! O shame!    Why do I walk abroad By daylight, when the very sunshine mocks me, And voices, and familiar sights and sounds Cry, "Hide thyself!"    O what a thin partition Doth shut out from the curious world the knowledge Of evil deeds that have been done in darkness! Disgrace has many tongues.    My fears are windows, Through which all eyes seem gazing.    Every face Expresses some suspicion of my shame, And in derision seems to smile at me! Hyp.    Did I not caution thee?    Did I not tell thee I was but half persuaded of her virtue? Vict.    And yet, Hypolito, we may be wrong, We may be over-hasty in condemning! The Count of Lara is a cursed villain. Hyp.    And therefore is she cursed, loving him. Vid.    She does not love him! 'T is for gold! for gold! Hyp.    Ay, but remember, in the public streets He shows a golden ring the Gypsy gave him, A serpent with a ruby in its mouth. Vict.    She had that ring from me!    God! she is false! But I will be revenged!    The hour is passed. Where stays the coward? Hyp.    Nay, he is no coward; A villain, if thou wilt, but not a coward. I've seen him play with swords; it is his pastime. And therefore be not over-confident, He'll task thy skill anon.    Look, here he comes. (Enter LARA followed by FRNANCISCO) Lara.    Good evening, gentlemen. Hyp.    Good evening, Count. Lara.    I trust I have not kept you long in waiting. Vict.    Not long, and yet too long.    Are you prepared? Lara.    I am. Hyp.    It grieves me much to see this quarrel Between you, gentlemen.    Is there no way Left open to accord this difference, But you must make one with your swords? Vict.    No! none! I do entreat thee, dear Hypolito, Stand not between me an my foe.    Too long Our tongues have spoken.    Let these tongues of steel End our debate.    Upon your guard, Sir Count. (They fight. VICTORIAN disarms the COUNT.) Your life is mine; and what shall now withhold me From sending your vile soul to its account? Lara.    Strike! strike! Vict.    You are disarmed.    I will not kill you. I will not murder you.    Take up your sword. (FRANCISCO hands the COUNT his sword, and HYPOLITO interposes.) Hyp.    Enough!    Let it end here!    The Count of Lara Has shown himself a brave man, and Victorian A generous one, as ever.    Now be friends. Put up your swords; for, to speak frankly to you, Your cause of quarrel is too slight a thing To move you to extremes. Lara.    I am content, I sought no quarrel.    A few hasty words, Spoken in the heat of blood, have led to this. Vict.    Nay, something more than that. Lara.    I understand you. Therein I did not mean to cross your path. To me the door stood open, as to others. But, had I known the girl belonged to you, Never would I have sought to win her from you. The truth stands now revealed; she has been false To both of us. Vict.    Ay, false as hell itself! Lara.    In truth, I did not seek her; she sought me; And told me how to win her, telling me The hours when she was oftenest left alone. Vict.    Say, can you prove this to me?    O, pluck out These awful doubts, that goad me into madness! Let me know all! all! all! Lara.    You shall know all. Here is my page, who was the messenger Between us.    Question him.    Was it not so, Francisco? Fran.    Ay, my lord. Lara.    If further proof Is needful, I have here a ring she gave me. Vict. Pray let me see that ring!    It is the same! (Throws it upon the ground, and tramples upon it.) Thus may she perish who once wore that ring! Thus do I spurn her from me; do thus trample Her memory in the dust!    O Count of Lara, We both have been abused, been much abused! I thank you for your courtesy and frankness. Though, like the surgeon's hand, yours gave me pain, Yet it has cured my blindness, and I thank you. I now can see the folly I have done, Though 't is, alas! too late.    So fare you well! To-night I leave this hateful town forever. Regard me as your friend. Once more farewell! Hyp.    Farewell, Sir Count. [Exeunt VICTORIAN and HYPOLITO. Lara.    Farewell! farewell! farewell! Thus have I cleared the field of my worst foe! I have none else to fear; the fight is done, The citadel is stormed, the victory won! [Exit with FRANCISCO.] SCENE VII. -- A lane in the suburbs.    Night.    Enter CRUZADO and BARTOLOME. Cruz.    And so, Bartolome, the expedition failed.    But where wast thou for the most part? Bart.    In the Guadarrama mountains, near San Ildefonso. Cruz.    And thou bringest nothing back with thee?    Didst thou rob no one? Bart.    There was no one to rob, save a party of students from Segovia, who looked as if they would rob us; and a jolly little friar, who had nothing in his pockets but a missal and a loaf of bread. Cruz.    Pray, then, what brings thee back to Madrid? Bart.    First tell me what keeps thee here? Cruz.    Preciosa. Bart.    And she brings me back.    Hast thou forgotten thy promise? Cruz.    The two years are not passed yet.    Wait patiently.    The girl shall be thine. Bart.    I hear she has a Busne lover. Cruz.    That is nothing. Bart.    I do not like it.    I hate him,--the son of a Busne harlot.    He goes in and out, and speaks with her alone, and I must stand aside, and wait his pleasure. Cruz.    Be patient, I say.    Thou shalt have thy revenge.    When the time comes, thou shalt waylay him. Bart.    Meanwhile, show me her house. Cruz.    Come this way.    But thou wilt not find her.    She dances at the play to-night. Bart.    No matter.    Show me the house. [Exeunt.] SCENE VIII. -- The Theatre.    The orchestra plays the cachucha. Sound of castanets behind the scenes.    The curtain rises, and discovers PRECIOSA in the attitude of commencing the dance.    The cachucha.    Tumult; hisses; cries of "Brava!" and "Afuera!"    She falters and pauses.    The music stops.    General confusion. PRECIOSA faints. SCENE IX. -- The COUNT OF LARA'S chambers.    LARA and his friends at supper. Lara.    So, Caballeros, once more many thanks! You have stood by me bravely in this matter. Pray fill your glasses. Don J.    Did you mark, Don Luis, How pale she looked, when first the noise began, And then stood still, with her large eyes dilated! Her nostrils spread! her lips apart! Her bosom Tumultuous as the sea! Don L.    I pitied her. Lara.    Her pride is humbled; and this very night I mean to visit her. Don J.    Will you serenade her? Lara.    No music! no more music! Don L.    Why not music? It softens many hearts. Lara.    Not in the humor She now is in.    Music would madden her. Don J.    Try golden cymbals. Don L.    Yes, try Don Dinero; A mighty wooer is your Don Dinero. Lara.    To tell the truth, then, I have bribed her maid. But, Caballeros, you dislike this wine. A bumper and away; for the night wears. A health to Preciosa. (They rise and drink.) All.    Preciosa. Lara.    (holding up his glass). Thou bright and flaming minister of Love! Thou wonderful magician! who hast stolen My secret from me, and mid sighs of passion Caught from my lips, with red and fiery tongue, Her precious name!    O nevermore henceforth Shall mortal lips press thine; and nevermore A mortal name be whispered in thine ear. Go! keep my secret! (Drinks and dashes the goblet down.) Don J.    Ite! missa est! (Scene closes.) SCENE X. -- Street and garden wall.    Night.    Enter CRUZADO and BARTOLOME. Cruz.    This is the garden wall, and above it, yonder, is her house.    The window in which thou seest the light is her window. But we will not go in now. Bart.    Why not? Cruz.    Because she is not at home. Bart.    No matter; we can wait.    But how is this?    The gate is bolted.    (Sound of guitars and voices in a neighboring street.) Hark!    There comes her lover with his infernal serenade!    Hark! SONG. Good night!    Good night, beloved! I come to watch o'er thee! To be near thee,--to be near thee, Alone is peace for me. Thine eyes are stars of morning, Thy lips are crimson flowers! Good night!    Good night beloved, While I count the weary hours. Cruz.    They are not coming this way. Bart.    Wait, they begin again. SONG (coming nearer). Ah! thou moon that shinest Argent-clear above! All night long enlighten My sweet lady-love! Moon that shinest, All night long enlighten! Bart.    Woe be to him, if he comes this way! Cruz.    Be quiet, they are passing down the street. SONG (dying away). The nuns in the cloister Sang to each other; For so many sisters Is there not one brother! Ay, for the partridge, mother! The cat has run away with the partridge! Puss! puss! puss! Bart.    Follow that! follow that! Come with me. Puss! puss! (Exeunt.    On the opposite side enter the COUNT OF LARA and gentlemen, with FRANCISCO.) Lara.    The gate is fast. Over the wall, Francisco, And draw the bolt.    There, so, and so, and over. Now, gentlemen, come in, and help me scale Yon balcony.    How now?    Her light still burns. Move warily.    Make fast the gate, Francisco. (Exeunt.    Re-enter CRUZADO and BARTOLOME.) Bart.    They went in at the gate.    Hark! I hear them in the garden. (Tries the gate.)    Bolted again! Vive Cristo! Follow me over the wall. (They climb the wall.) SCENE XI. -- PRECIOSA'S bedchamber.    Midnight. She is sleeping in an armchair, in an undress.    DOLORES watching her. Dol.    She sleeps at last! (Opens the window, and listens.) All silent in the street, And in the garden.    Hark! Prec. (in her sleep).    I must go hence! Give me my cloak! Dol.    He comes!    I hear his footsteps. Prec.    Go tell them that I cannot dance to-night; I am too ill!    Look at me!    See the fever That burns upon my cheek!    I must go hence. I am too weak to dance. (Signal from the garden.) Dol. (from the window).    Who's there? Voice (from below).    A friend. Dol.    I will undo the door.    Wait till I come. Prec.    I must go hence.    I pray you do not harm me! Shame! shame! to treat a feeble woman thus! Be you but kind, I will do all things for you. I'm ready now,--give me my castanets. Where is Victorian?    Oh, those hateful lamps! They glare upon me like an evil eye. I cannot stay.    Hark! how they mock at me! They hiss at me like serpents!    Save me! save me! (She wakes.) How late is it, Dolores? Dol.    It is midnight. Prec.    We must be patient. Smooth this pillow for me. (She sleeps again.    Noise from the garden, and voices.) Voice.    Muera! Another Voice.    O villains! villains! Lara.    So! have at you! Voice.    Take that! Lara.    O, I am wounded! Dol. (shutting the window).    Jesu Maria! ACT III. SCENE I. -- A cross-road through a wood.    In the background a distant village spire.    VICTORIAN and HYPOLITO, as travelling students, with guitars, sitting under the trees.    HYPOLITO plays and sings. SONG. Ah, Love! Perjured, false, treacherous Love! Enemy Of all that mankind may not rue! Most untrue To him who keeps most faith with thee. Woe is me! The falcon has the eyes of the dove. Ah, Love! Perjured, false, treacherous Love! Vict.    Yes, Love is ever busy with his shuttle, Is ever weaving into life's dull warp Bright, gorgeous flowers and scenes Arcadian; Hanging our gloomy prison-house about With tapestries, that make its walls dilate In never-ending vistas of delight. Hyp.    Thinking to walk in those Arcadian pastures, Thou hast run thy noble head against the wall. SONG (continued). Thy deceits Give us clearly to comprehend, Whither tend All thy pleasures, all thy sweets! They are cheats, Thorns below and flowers above. Ah, Love! Perjured, false, treacherous Love! Vict.    A very pretty song.    I thank thee for it. Hyp.    It suits thy case. Vict.    Indeed, I think it does. What wise man wrote it? Hyp.    Lopez Maldonado. Vict.    In truth, a pretty song. Hyp.    With much truth in it. I hope thou wilt profit by it; and in earnest Try to forget this lady of thy love. Vict.    I will forget her!    All dear recollections Pressed in my heart, like flowers within a book, Shall be torn out, and scattered to the winds! I will forget her!    But perhaps hereafter, When she shall learn how heartless is the world, A voice within her will repeat my name, And she will say, "He was indeed my friend!" O, would I were a soldier, not a scholar, That the loud march, the deafening beat of drums, The shattering blast of the brass-throated trumpet, The din of arms, the onslaught and the storm, And a swift death, might make me deaf forever To the upbraidings of this foolish heart! Hyp.    Then let that foolish heart upbraid no more! To conquer love, one need but will to conquer. Vict.    Yet, good Hypolito, it is in vain I throw into Oblivion's sea the sword That pierces me; for, like Excalibar, With gemmed and flashing hilt, it will not sink. There rises from below a hand that grasp it, And waves it in the air; and wailing voices Are heard along the shore. Hyp.    And yet at last Down sank Excalibar to rise no more. This is not well.    In truth, it vexes me. Instead of whistling to the steeds of Time, To make them jog on merrily with life's burden, Like a dead weight thou hangest on the wheels. Thou art too young, too full of lusty health To talk of dying. Vict.    Yet I fain would die! To go through life, unloving and unloved; To feel that thirst and hunger of the soul We cannot still; that longing, that wild impulse, And struggle after something we have not And cannot have; the effort to be strong And, like the Spartan boy, to smile, and smile, While secret wounds do bleed beneath our cloaks All this the dead feel not,--the dead alone! Would I were with them! Hyp.    We shall all be soon. Vict.    It cannot be too soon; for I am weary Of the bewildering masquerade of Life, Where strangers walk as friends, and friends as strangers; Where whispers overheard betray false hearts; And through the mazes of the crowd we chase Some form of loveliness, that smiles, and beckons, And cheats us with fair words, only to leave us A mockery and a jest; maddened,--confused,-- Not knowing friend from foe. Hyp.    Why seek to know? Enjoy the merry shrove-tide of thy youth! Take each fair mask for what it gives itself, Nor strive to look beneath it. Vict.    I confess, That were the wiser part.    But Hope no longer Comforts my soul.    I am a wretched man, Much like a poor and shipwrecked mariner, Who, struggling to climb up into the boat, Has both his bruised and bleeding hands cut off, And sinks again into the weltering sea, Helpless and hopeless! Hyp.    Yet thou shalt not perish. The strength of thine own arm is thy salvation. Above thy head, through rifted clouds, there shines A glorious star.    Be patient.    Trust thy star! (Sound of a village belt in the distance.) Vict.    Ave Maria!    I hear the sacristan Ringing the chimes from yonder village belfry! A solemn sound, that echoes far and wide Over the red roofs of the cottages, And bids the laboring hind a-field, the shepherd, Guarding his flock, the lonely muleteer, And all the crowd in village streets, stand still, And breathe a prayer unto the blessed Virgin! Hyp.    Amen! amen!    Not half a league from hence The village lies. Vict.    This path will lead us to it, Over the wheat-fields, where the shadows sail Across the running sea, now green, now blue, And, like an idle mariner on the main, Whistles the quail.    Come, let us hasten on. [Exeunt.] SCENE II. -- Public square in the village of Guadarrama.    The Ave Maria still tolling.    A crowd of villagers, with their hats in their hands, as if in prayer.    In front, a group of Gypsies.    The bell rings a merrier peal.    A Gypsy dance.    Enter PANCHO, followed by PEDRO CRESPO. Pancho.    Make room, ye vagabonds and Gypsy thieves! Make room for the Alcalde and for me! Pedro C.    Keep silence all!    I have an edict here From our most gracious lord, the King of Spain, Jerusalem, and the Canary Islands, Which I shall publish in the market-place. Open your ears and listen! (Enter the PADRE CURA at the door of his cottage.) Padre Cura, Good day! and, pray you, hear this edict read. Padre C.    Good day, and God be with you!    Pray, what is it? Pedro C.    An act of banishment against the Gypsies! (Agitation and murmurs in the crowd.) Pancho.    Silence! Pedro C. (reads).    "I hereby order and command, That the Egyptian an Chaldean strangers, Known by the name of Gypsies, shall henceforth Be banished from the realm, as vagabonds And beggars; and if, after seventy days, Any be found within our kingdom's bounds, They shall receive a hundred lashes each; The second time, shall have their ears cut off; The third, be slaves for life to him who takes them, Or burnt as heretics.    Signed, I, the King." Vile miscreants and creatures unbaptized! You hear the law!    Obey and disappear! Pancho.    And if in seventy days you are not gone, Dead or alive I make you all my slaves. (The Gypsies go out in confusion, showing signs of fear and discontent.    PANCHO follows.) Padre C.    A righteous law!    A very righteous law! Pray you, sit down. Pedro C.    I thank you heartily. (They seat themselves on a bench at the PADRE CURAS door.    Sound of guitars heard at a distance, approaching during the dialogue which follows.) A very righteous judgment, as you say. Now tell me, Padre Cura,--you know all things, How came these Gypsies into Spain? Padre C.    Why, look you; They came with Hercules from Palestine, And hence are thieves and vagrants, Sir Alcalde, As the Simoniacs from Simon Magus, And, look you, as Fray Jayme Bleda says, There are a hundred marks to prove a Moor Is not a Christian, so 't is with the Gypsies. They never marry, never go to mass, Never baptize their children, nor keep Lent, Nor see the inside of a church,--nor--nor-- Pedro C.    Good reasons, good, substantial reasons all! No matter for the other ninety-five. They should be burnt, I see it plain enough, They should be bunt. (Enter VICTORIAN and HYPOLITO playing.) Padre C.    And pray, whom have we here? Pedro C.    More vagrants!    By Saint Lazarus, more vagrants! Hyp.    Good evening, gentlemen!    Is this Guadarrama? Padre C.    Yes, Guadarrama, and good evening to you. Hyp.    We seek the Padre Cura of the village; And, judging from your dress and reverend mien, You must be he. Padre C.    I am.    Pray, what's your pleasure? Hyp.    We are poor students, traveling in vacation. You know this mark? (Touching the wooden spoon in his hat-band. Padre C. (joyfully).    Ay, know it, and have worn it. Pedro C.    (aside).    Soup-eaters! by the mass!    The worst of vagrants! And there's no law against them.    Sir, your servant. [Exit.] Padre C.    Your servant, Pedro Crespo. Hyp.    Padre Cura, Front the first moment I beheld your face, I said within myself, "This is the man!" There is a certain something in your looks, A certain scholar-like and studious something,-- You understand,--which cannot be mistaken; Which marks you as a very learned man, In fine, as one of us. Vict. (aside).    What impudence! Hyp.    As we approached, I said to my companion, "That is the Padre Cura; mark my words!" Meaning your Grace.    "The other man," said I, Who sits so awkwardly upon the bench, Must be the sacristan." Padre C.    Ah! said you so? Why, that was Pedro Crespo, the alcalde! Hyp.    Indeed! you much astonish me!    His air Was not so full of dignity and grace As an alcalde's should be. Padre C.    That is true. He's out of humor with some vagrant Gypsies, Who have their camp here in the neighborhood. There's nothing so undignified as anger. Hyp.    The Padre Cura will excuse our boldness, If, from his well-known hospitality, We crave a lodging for the night. Padre C.    I pray you! You do me honor!    I am but too happy To have such guests beneath my humble roof. It is not often that I have occasion To speak with scholars; and Emollit mores, Nec sinit esse feros, Cicero says. Hyp.    'T is Ovid, is it not? Padre C.    No, Cicero. Hyp.    Your Grace is right.    You are the better scholar. Now what a dunce was I to think it Ovid! But hang me if it is not! (Aside.) Padre C.    Pass this way. He was a very great man, was Cicero! Pray you, go in, go in! no ceremony. [Exeunt. SCENE III. -- A room in the PADRE CURA'S    house.    Enter the PADRE and HYPOLITO. Padre C.    So then, Senor, you come from Alcala. I am glad to hear it.    It was there I studied. Hyp.    And left behind an honored name, no doubt. How may I call your Grace? Padre C.    Geronimo De Santillana, at your Honor's service. Hyp.    Descended from the Marquis Santillana? From the distinguished poet? Padre C.    From the Marquis, Not from the poet. Hyp.    Why, they were the same. Let me embrace you!    O some lucky star Has brought me hither!    Yet once more!--once more! Your name is ever green in Alcala, And our professor, when we are unruly, Will shake his hoary head, and say, "Alas! It was not so in Santillana's time!" Padre C.    I did not think my name remembered there. Hyp.    More than remembered; it is idolized. Padre C.    Of what professor speak you? Hyp.    Timoneda. Padre C. I don't remember any Timoneda. Hyp.    A grave and sombre man, whose beetling brow O'erhangs the rushing current of his speech As rocks o'er rivers hang.    Have you forgotten? Padre C.    Indeed, I have.    O, those were pleasant days, Those college days!    I ne'er shall see the like! I had not buried then so many hopes! I had not buried then so many friends! I've turned my back on what was then before me; And the bright faces of my young companions Are wrinkled like my own, or are no more. Do you remember Cueva? Hyp.    Cueva?    Cueva? Padre C.    Fool that I am!    He was before your time. You're a mere boy, and I am an old man. Hyp.    I should not like to try my strength with you. Padre C.    Well, well.    But I forget; you must be hungry. Martina! ho! Martina!    'T is my niece. (Enter MARTINA.) Hyp.    You may be proud of such a niece as that. I wish I had a niece.    Emollit mores. (Aside.) He was a very great man, was Cicero! Your servant, fair Martina. Mart.    Servant, sir. Padre C.    This gentleman is hungry.    See thou to it. Let us have supper. Mart.    'T will be ready soon. Padre C.    And bring a bottle of my Val-de-Penas Out of the cellar.    Stay; I'll go myself. Pray you. Senor, excuse me.    [Exit. Hyp.    Hist! Martina! One word with you.    Bless me I what handsome eyes! To-day there have been Gypsies in the village. Is it not so? Mart.    There have been Gypsies here. Hyp.    Yes, and have told your fortune. Mart. (embarrassed).    Told my fortune? Hyp.    Yes, yes; I know they did.    Give me your hand. I'll tell you what they said.    They said,--they said, The shepherd boy that loved you was a clown, And him you should not marry.    Was it not? Mart. (surprised).    How know you that? Hyp.    O, I know more than that, What a soft, little hand!    And then they said, A cavalier from court, handsome, and tall And rich, should come one day to marry you, And you should be a lady.    Was it not! He has arrived, the handsome cavalier. (Tries to kiss her.    She runs off.    Enter VICTORIAN, with a letter.) Vict.    The muleteer has come. Hyp.    So soon? Vict.    I found him Sitting at supper by the tavern door, And, from a pitcher that he held aloft His whole arm's length, drinking the blood-red wine. Hyp.    What news from Court? Vict.    He brought this letter only. (Reads.) O cursed perfidy!    Why did I let That lying tongue deceive me!    Preciosa, Sweet Preciosa! how art thou avenged! Hyp.    What news is this, that makes thy cheek turn pale, And thy hand tremble? Vict.    O, most infamous! The Count of Lara is a worthless villain! Hyp.    That is no news, forsooth. Vict.    He strove in vain To steal from me the jewel of my soul, The love of Preciosa.    Not succeeding, He swore to be revenged; and set on foot A plot to ruin her, which has succeeded. She has been hissed and hooted from the stage, Her reputation stained by slanderous lies Too foul to speak of; and, once more a beggar, She roams a wanderer over God's green earth Housing with Gypsies! Hyp.    To renew again The Age of Gold, and make the shepherd swains Desperate with love, like Gasper Gil's Diana. Redit et Virgo! Vict.    Dear Hypolito, How have I wronged that meek, confiding heart! I will go seek for her; and with my tears Wash out the wrong I've done her! Hyp.    O beware! Act not that folly o'er again. Vict.    Ay, folly, Delusion, madness, call it what thou wilt, I will confess my weakness,--I still love her! Still fondly love her! (Enter the PADRE CURA.) Hyp.    Tell us, Padre Cura, Who are these Gypsies in the neighborhood? Padre C.    Beltran Cruzado and his crew. Vict.    Kind Heaven, I thank thee!    She is found! is found again! Hyp.    And have they with them a pale, beautiful girl, Called Preciosa? Padre C.    Ay, a pretty girl. The gentleman seems moved. Hyp.    Yes, moved with hunger, He is half famished with this long day's journey. Padre C.    Then, pray you, come this way.    The supper waits. [Exeunt.] SCENE IV. -- A post-house on the road to Segovia, not far from the village of Guadarrama.    Enter CHISPA, cracking a whip, and singing the cachucha. Chispa.    Halloo!    Don Fulano!    Let us have horses, and quickly. Alas, poor Chispa! what a dog's life dost thou lead!    I thought, when I left my old master Victorian, the student, to serve my new master Don Carlos, the gentleman, that I, too, should lead the life of a gentleman; should go to bed early, and get up late. For when the abbot plays cards, what can you expect of the friars?    But, in running away from the thunder, I have run into the lightning. Here I am in hot chase after my master and his Gypsy girl. And a good beginning of the week it is, as he said who was hanged on Monday morning. (Enter DON CARLOS) Don C.    Are not the horses ready yet? Chispa.    I should think not, for the hostler seems to be asleep. Ho! within there!    Horses! horses! horses!    (He knocks at the gate    with his whip, and enter MOSQUITO, putting on his jacket.) Mosq.    Pray, have a little patience.    I'm not a musket. Chispa.    Health and pistareens!    I'm glad to see you come on dancing, padre!    Pray, what's the news? Mosq.    You cannot have fresh horses; because there are none. Chispa.    Cachiporra! Throw that bone to another dog.    Do I look like your aunt? Mosq.    No; she has a beard. Chispa.    Go to! go to! Mosq.    Are you from Madrid? Chispa.    Yes; and going to Estramadura.    Get us horses. Mosq.    What's the news at Court? Chispa.    Why, the latest news is, that I am going to set up a coach, and I have already bought the whip. (Strikes him round the legs.) Mosq.    Oh! oh! You hurt me! Don C.    Enough of this folly.    Let us have horses.    (Gives money to MOSQUITO.)    It is almost dark; and we are in haste.    But tell me, has a band of Gypsies passed this way of late? Mosq.    Yes; and they are still in the neighborhood. Don C.    And where? Mosq.    Across the fields yonder, in the woods near Guadarrama. [Exit. Don C.    Now this is lucky.    We will visit the Gypsy camp. Chispa.    Are you not afraid of the evil eye?    Have you a stag's horn with you? Don C.    Fear not.    We will pass the night at the village. Chispa.    And sleep like the Squires of Hernan Daza, nine under one blanket. Don C.    I hope we may find the Preciosa among them. Chispa.    Among the Squires? Don C.    No; among the Gypsies, blockhead! Chispa.    I hope we may; for we are giving ourselves trouble enough on her account.    Don't you think so?    However, there is no catching trout without wetting one's trousers.    Yonder come the horses. [Exeunt.] SCENE V. -- The Gypsy camp in the forest.    Night.    Gypsies working at a forge.    Others playing cards by the firelight. Gypsies (at the forge sing). On the top of a mountain I stand, With a crown of red gold in my hand, Wild Moors come trooping over the lea O how from their fury shall I flee, flee, flee? O how from their fury shall I flee? First Gypsy (playing).    Down with your John-Dorados, my pigeon. Down with your John-Dorados, and let us make an end. Gypsies (at the forge sing). Loud sang the Spanish cavalier, And thus his ditty ran; God send the Gypsy lassie here, And not the Gypsy man. First Gypsy (playing).    There you are in your morocco! Second Gypsy.    One more game.    The Alcalde's doves against the Padre Cura's new moon. First Gypsy.    Have at you, Chirelin. Gypsies (at the forge sing). At midnight, when the moon began To show her silver flame, There came to him no Gypsy man, The Gypsy lassie came. (Enter BELTRAN CRUZADO.) Cruz.    Come hither, Murcigalleros and Rastilleros; leave work, leave play; listen to your orders for the night.    (Speaking to the right.)    You will get you to the village, mark you, by the stone cross. Gypsies.    Ay! Cruz. (to the left).    And you, by the pole with the hermit's head upon it. Gypsies.    Ay! Cruz.    As soon as you see the planets are out, in with you, and be busy with the ten commandments, under the sly, and Saint Martin asleep.    D'ye hear? Gypsies.    Ay! Cruz.    Keep your lanterns open, and, if you see a goblin or a papagayo, take to your trampers.    Vineyards and Dancing John is the word.    Am I comprehended? Gypsies.    Ay! ay! Cruz.    Away, then! (Exeunt severally.    CRUZADO walks up the stage, and disappears among the trees.    Enter PRECIOSA.) Prec.    How strangely gleams through the gigantic trees The red light of the forge!    Wild, beckoning shadows Stalk through the forest, ever and anon Rising and bending with the flickering flame, Then flitting into darkness!    So within me Strange hopes and fears do beckon to each other, My brightest hopes giving dark fears a being As the light does the shadow.    Woe is me How still it is about me, and how lonely! (BARTOLOME rushes in.) Bart.    Ho!    Preciosa! Prec.    O Bartolome! Thou here? Bart.    Lo! I am here. Prec.    Whence comest thou? Bart.    From the rough ridges of the wild Sierra, From caverns in the rocks, from hunger, thirst, And fever!    Like a wild wolf to the sheepfold. Come I for thee, my lamb. Prec.    O touch me not! The Count of Lara's blood is on thy hands! The Count of Lara's curse is on thy soul! Do not come near me!    Pray, begone from here Thou art in danger!    They have set a price Upon thy head! Bart.    Ay, and I've wandered long Among the mountains; and for many days Have seen no human face, save the rough swineherd's. The wind and rain have been my sole companions. I shouted to them from the rocks thy name, And the loud echo sent it back to me, Till I grew mad.    I could not stay from thee, And I am here!    Betray me, if thou wilt. Prec.    Betray thee?    I betray thee? Bart.        Preciosa! I come for thee! for thee I thus brave death! Fly with me o'er the borders of this realm! Fly with me! Prec.    Speak of that no more.    I cannot. I'm thine no longer. Bart.    O, recall the time When we were children! how we played together, How we grew up together; how we plighted Our hearts unto each other, even in childhood! Fulfil thy promise, for the hour has come. I'm hunted from the kingdom, like a wolf! Fulfil thy promise. Prec.    'T was my father's promise. Not mine.    I never gave my heart to thee, Nor promised thee my hand! Bart.    False tongue of woman! And heart more false! Prec.    Nay, listen unto me. I will speak frankly.    I have never loved thee; I cannot love thee.    This is not my fault, It is my destiny.    Thou art a man Restless and violent.    What wouldst thou with me, A feeble girl, who have not long to live, Whose heart is broken?    Seek another wife, Better than I, and fairer; and let not Thy rash and headlong moods estrange her from thee. Thou art unhappy in this hopeless passion, I never sought thy love; never did aught To make thee love me.    Yet I pity thee, And most of all I pity thy wild heart, That hurries thee to crimes and deeds of blood, Beware, beware of that. Bart.    For thy dear sake I will be gentle.    Thou shalt teach me patience. Prec.    Then take this farewell, and depart in peace. Thou must not linger here. Bart.    Come, come with me. Prec.    Hark! I hear footsteps. Bart.    I entreat thee, come! Prec.    Away!    It is in vain. Bart.    Wilt thou not come? Prec.    Never! Bart.    Then woe, eternal woe, upon thee! Thou shalt not be another's.    Thou shalt die. [Exit.] Prec.    All holy angels keep me in this hour! Spirit of her who bore me, look upon me! Mother of God, the glorified, protect me! Christ and the saints, be merciful unto me! Yet why should I fear death?    What is it to die? To leave all disappointment, care, and sorrow, To leave all falsehood, treachery, and unkindness, All ignominy, suffering, and despair, And be at rest forever!    O dull heart, Be of good cheer!    When thou shalt cease to beat, Then shalt thou cease to suffer and complain! (Enter VICTORIAN and HYPOLITO behind.) Vict.    'T is she!    Behold, how beautiful she stands Under the tent-like trees! Hyp.    A woodland nymph! Vict.    I pray thee, stand aside.    Leave me. Hyp.    Be wary. Do not betray thyself too soon. Vict. (disguising his voice).    Hist!    Gypsy! Prec. (aside, with emotion). That voice! that voice from heaven!    O speak again! Who is it calls? Vict.    A friend. Prec. (aside).    'T is he!    'T is he! I thank thee, Heaven, that thou hast heard my prayer, And sent me this protector!    Now be strong, Be strong, my heart!    I must dissemble here. False friend or true? Vict.    A true friend to the true; Fear not; come hither.    So; can you tell fortunes? Prec.    Not in the dark.    Come nearer to the fire. Give me your hand.    It is not crossed, I see. Vict. (putting a piece of gold into her hand).    There is the cross. Prec.    Is 't silver? Vict.    No, 't is gold. Prec.    There's a fair lady at the Court, who loves you, And for yourself alone. Vict.    Fie! the old story! Tell me a better fortune for my money; Not this old woman's tale! Prec.    You are passionate; And this same passionate humor in your blood Has marred your fortune.    Yes; I see it now; The line of life is crossed by many marks. Shame! shame!    O you have wronged the maid who loved you! How could you do it? Vict.    I never loved a maid; For she I loved was then a maid no more. Prec.    How know you that? Vict.    A little bird in the air Whispered the secret. Prec.    There, take back your gold! Your hand is cold, like a deceiver's hand! There is no blessing in its charity! Make her your wife, for you have been abused; And you shall mend your fortunes, mending hers. Vict. (aside).    How like an angel's speaks the tongue of woman, When pleading in another's cause her own! That is a pretty ring upon your finger. Pray give it me. (Tries to take the ring.) Prec.    No; never from my hand Shall that be taken! Vict.    Why, 't is but a ring. I'll give it back to you; or, if I keep it, Will give you gold to buy you twenty such. Prec.    Why would you have this ring? Vict.    A traveller's fancy, A whim, and nothing more.    I would fain keep it As a memento of the Gypsy camp In Guadarrama, and the fortune-teller Who sent me back to wed a widowed maid. Pray, let me have the ring. Prec.    No, never! never! I will not part with it, even when I die; But bid my nurse fold my pale fingers thus, That it may not fall from them.    'T is a token Of a beloved friend, who is no more. Vict.    How? dead? Prec.    Yes; dead to me; and worse than dead. He is estranged!    And yet I keep this ring. I will rise with it from my grave hereafter, To prove to him that I was never false. Vict. (aside).    Be still, my swelling heart! one moment, still! Why, 't is the folly of a love-sick girl. Come, give it me, or I will say 't is mine, And that you stole it. Prec.    O, you will not dare To utter such a falsehood! Vict.    I not dare? Look in my face, and say if there is aught I have not dared, I would not dare for thee! (She rushes into his arms.) Prec.    'T is thou! 't is thou!    Yes; yes; my heart's elected! My dearest-dear Victorian! my soul's heaven! Where hast thou been so long?    Why didst thou leave me? Vict.    Ask me not now, my dearest Preciosa. Let me forget we ever have been parted! Prec.    Hadst thou not come-- Vict.    I pray thee, do not chide me! Prec.    I should have perished here among these Gypsies. Vict.    Forgive me, sweet! for what I made thee suffer. Think'st thou this heart could feel a moment's joy, Thou being absent?    O, believe it not! Indeed, since that sad hour I have not slept, For thinking of the wrong I did to thee Dost thou forgive me?    Say, wilt thou forgive me? Prec.    I have forgiven thee.    Ere those words of anger Were in the book of Heaven writ down against thee, I had forgiven thee. Vict.    I'm the veriest fool That walks the earth, to have believed thee false. It was the Count of Lara-- Prec.    That bad man Has worked me harm enough.    Hast thou not heard-- Vict.    I have heard all.    And yet speak on, speak on! Let me but hear thy voice, and I am happy; For every tone, like some sweet incantation, Calls up the buried past to plead for me. Speak, my beloved, speak into my heart, Whatever fills and agitates thine own. (They walk aside.) Hyp.    All gentle quarrels in the pastoral poets, All passionate love scenes in the best romances, All chaste embraces on the public stage, All soft adventures, which the liberal stars Have winked at, as the natural course of things, Have been surpassed here by my friend, the student, And this sweet Gypsy lass, fair Preciosa! Prec.    Senor Hypolito!    I kiss your hand. Pray, shall I tell your fortune? Hyp.        Not to-night; For, should you treat me as you did Victorian, And send me back to marry maids forlorn, My wedding day would last from now till Christmas. Chispa (within).    What ho! the Gypsies, ho!    Beltran Cruzado! Halloo! halloo! halloo! halloo! (Enters booted, with a whip and lantern.) Vict.    What now Why such a fearful din?    Hast thou been robbed? Chispa.    Ay, robbed and murdered; and good evening to you, My worthy masters. Vict.    Speak; what brings thee here? CHISPA (to PRECIOSA). Good news from Court; good news!    Beltran Cruzado, The Count of the Cales, is not your father, But your true father has returned to Spain Laden with wealth.    You are no more a Gypsy. Vict.    Strange as a Moorish tale! Chispa.    And we have all Been drinking at the tavern to your health, As wells drink in November, when it rains. Vict.    Where is the gentlemen? Chispa.    As the old song says, His body is in Segovia, His soul is in Madrid, Prec.    Is this a dream?    O, if it be a dream, Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet! Repeat thy story!    Say I'm not deceived! Say that I do not dream!    I am awake; This is the Gypsy camp; this is Victorian, And this his friend, Hypolito!    Speak! speak! Let me not wake and find it all a dream! Vict.    It is a dream, sweet child! a waking dream, A blissful certainty, a vision bright Of that rare happiness, which even on earth Heaven gives to those it loves.    Now art thou rich, As thou wast ever beautiful and good; And I am now the beggar. Prec. (giving him her hand).    I have still A hand to give. Chispa (aside).    And I have two to take. I've heard my grandmother say, that Heaven gives almonds To those who have no teeth.    That's nuts to crack, I've teeth to spare, but where shall I find almonds? Vict.    What more of this strange story? Chispa.    Nothing more. Your friend, Don Carlos, is now at the village Showing to Pedro Crespo, the Alcalde, The proofs of what I tell you.    The old hag, Who stole you in your childhood, has confessed; And probably they'll hang her for the crime, To make the celebration more complete. Vict.    No; let it be a day of general joy; Fortune comes well to all, that comes not late. Now let us join Don Carlos. Hyp.        So farewell, The student's wandering life!    Sweet serenades, Sung under ladies' windows in the night, And all that makes vacation beautiful! To you, ye cloistered shades of Alcala, To you, ye radiant visions of romance, Written in books, but here surpassed by truth, The Bachelor Hypolito returns, And leaves the Gypsy with the Spanish Student. SCENE VI. -- A pass in the Guadarrama mountains.    Early morning. A muleteer crosses the stage, sitting sideways on his mule and lighting a paper cigar with flint and steel. SONG. If thou art sleeping, maiden, Awake and open thy door, 'T is the break of day, and we must away, O'er meadow, and mount, and moor. Wait not to find thy slippers, But come with thy naked feet; We shall have to pass through the dewy grass, And waters wide and fleet. (Disappears down the pass.    Enter a Monk.    A shepherd appears on the rocks above.) Monk.    Ave Maria, gratia plena.    Ola! good man! Shep.    Ola! Monk.    Is this the road to Segovia? Shep.    It is, your reverence. Monk.    How far is it? Shep.    I do not know. Monk.    What is that yonder in the valley? Shep.    San Ildefonso. Monk.    A long way to breakfast. Shep.    Ay, marry. Monk.    Are there robbers in these mountains? Shep.    Yes, and worse than that. Monk.    What? Shep.    Wolves. Monk.    Santa Maria!    Come with me to San Ildefonso, and thou shalt be well rewarded. Shep.    What wilt thou give me? Monk.    An Agnus Dei and my benediction. (They disappear.    A mounted Contrabandista passes, wrapped in his cloak, and a gun at his saddle-bow.    He goes down the pass singing.) SONG. Worn with speed is my good steed, And I march me hurried, worried; Onward, caballito mio, With the white star in thy forehead! Onward, for here comes the Ronda, And I hear their rifles crack! Ay, jaleo!    Ay, ay, jaleo! Ay, jaleo!    They cross our track. (Song dies away.    Enter PRECIOSA, on horseback, attended by VICTORIAN, HYPOLITO, DON CARLOS, and CHISPA, on foot, and armed.) Vict.    This is the highest point.    Here let us rest. See, Preciosa, see how all about us Kneeling, like hooded friars, the misty mountains Receive the benediction of the sun! O glorious sight! Prec.    Most beautiful indeed! Hyp.    Most wonderful! Vict.    And in the vale below, Where yonder steeples flash like lifted halberds, San Ildefonso, from its noisy belfries, Sends up a salutation to the morn, As if an army smote their brazen shields, And shouted victory! Prec.    And which way lies Segovia? Vict.    At a great distance yonder. Dost thou not see it? Prec.    No.    I do not see it. Vict.    The merest flaw that dents the horizon's edge. There, yonder! Hyp.    'T is a notable old town, Boasting an ancient Roman aqueduct, And an Alcazar, builded by the Moors, Wherein, you may remember, poor Gil Blas Was fed on Pan del Rey.    O, many a time Out of its grated windows have I looked Hundreds of feet plumb down to the Eresma, That, like a serpent through the valley creeping, Glides at its foot. Prec.    O yes!    I see it now, Yet rather with my heart than with mine eyes, So faint it is.    And all my thoughts sail thither, Freighted with prayers and hopes, and forward urged Against all stress of accident, as in The Eastern Tale, against the wind and tide Great ships were drawn to the Magnetic Mountains, And there were wrecked, and perished in the sea! (She weeps.) Vict.    O gentle spirit!    Thou didst bear unmoved Blasts of adversity and frosts of fate! But the first ray of sunshine that falls on thee Melts thee to tears!    O, let thy weary heart Lean upon mine! and it shall faint no more, Nor thirst, nor hunger; but be comforted And filled with my affection. Prec.    Stay no longer! My father waits.    Methinks I see him there, Now looking from the window, and now watching Each sound of wheels or footfall in the street, And saying, "Hark! she comes!"    O father! father! (They descend the pass.    CHISPA remains behind.) Chispa.    I have a father, too, but he is a dead one.    Alas and alack-a-day.    Poor was I born, and poor do I remain.    I neither win nor lose.    Thus I was, through the world, half the time on foot, and the other half walking; and always as merry as a thunder-storm in the night.    And so we plough along, as the fly said to the ox.    Who knows what may happen?    Patience, and shuffle the cards!    I am not yet so bald that you can see my brains; and perhaps, after all, I shall some day go to Rome, and come back Saint Peter.    Benedicite! [Exit.] (A pause.    Then enter BARTOLOME wildly, as if in pursuit, with a carbine in his hand.) Bart.    They passed this way!    I hear their horses' hoofs! Yonder I see them!    Come, sweet caramillo, This serenade shall be the Gypsy's last! (Fires down the pass.) Ha! ha!    Well whistled, my sweet caramillo! Well whistled!--I have missed her!--O my God! (The shot is returned.    BARTOLOME falls).

The Next War

Robert von Ranke Graves

You young friskies who today Jump and fight in Father's hay With bows and arrows and wooden spears, Playing at Royal Welch Fusiliers, Happy though these hours you spend, Have they warned you how games end? Boys, from the first time you prod And thrust with spears of curtain-rod, From the first time you tear and slash Your long-bows from the garden ash, Or fit your shaft with a blue jay feather, Binding the split tops together, From that same hour by fate you're bound As champions of this stony ground, Loyal and true in everything, To serve your Army and your King, Prepared to starve and sweat and die Under some fierce foreign sky, If only to keep safe those joys That belong to British boys, To keep young Prussians from the soft Scented hay of father's loft, And stop young Slavs from cutting bows And bendy spears from Welsh hedgerows. Another War soon gets begun, A dirtier, a more glorious one; Then, boys, you'll have to play, all in; It's the cruellest team will win. So hold your nose against the stink And never stop too long to think. Wars don't change except in name; The next one must go just the same, And new foul tricks unguessed before Will win and justify this War. Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage Once more with pomp and greed and rage; Courtly ministers will stop At home and fight to the last drop; By the million men will die In some new horrible agony; And children here will thrust and poke, Shoot and die, and laugh at the joke, With bows and arrows and wooden spears, Playing at Royal Welch Fusiliers.

The Rush To London

Henry Lawson

You're off away to London now, Where no one dare ignore you, With Southern laurels on your brow, And all the world before you. But if you should return again, Forgotten and unknowing, Then one shall wait in wind and rain, Where forty cheered you going. You're off away to London, proved, Where fair girls shall adore you; The poor, plain face of one that loved May never rise before you. But if you should return again, When young blood ceases flowing, Then one shall wait in wind and rain, Where forty cheered you going. It may be carelessly you spoke Of never more returning, But sometimes in the London smoke, You'll smell the gum leaves burning; And think of how the grassy plain Beyond the fog is flowing, And one that waits in shine or rain, Where forty cheered you going.

The Chimera

Oliver Herford

You'd think a lion or a snake Were quite enough one's nerves to shake; But in this classic beast we find A lion and a snake combined, And, just as if that weren't enough, A goat thrown in to make it tough. Let scientists the breed pooh! pooh! Come with me to some Social Zoo And hear the bearded Lion bleat Goat-like on patent-kidded feet, Whose "Civil leer and damning praise" The serpent's cloven tongue betrays. Lo! lion, goat, and snake combined! Thus Nature doth repeat her kind.

Song

Hilaire Belloc

Inviting the influence of a young lady upon the opening year You wear the morning like your dress And are with mastery crown'd; When as you walk your loveliness Goes shining all around: Upon your secret, smiling way Such new contents were found, The Dancing Loves made holiday On that delightful ground. Then summon April forth, and send Commandment through the flowers; About our woods your grace extend, A queen of careless hours. For O! not Vera veil'd in rain, Nor Dian's sacred Ring, With all her royal nymphs in train Could so lead on the Spring.

You Were The Sort That Men Forget

Thomas Hardy

You were the sort that men forget; Though I - not yet! - Perhaps not ever. Your slighted weakness Adds to the strength of my regret! You'd not the art - you never had For good or bad - To make men see how sweet your meaning, Which, visible, had charmed them glad. You would, by words inept let fall, Offend them all, Even if they saw your warm devotion Would hold your life's blood at their call. You lacked the eye to understand Those friends offhand Whose mode was crude, though whose dim purport Outpriced the courtesies of the bland. I am now the only being who Remembers you It may be. What a waste that Nature Grudged soul so dear the art its due!

You'll Love Me Yet

Robert Browning

You'll love me yet! and I can tarry Your love's protracted growing: June reared that bunch of flowers you carry From seeds of April's sowing. I plant a heartful now: some seed At least is sure to strike, And yield, what you'll not pluck indeed, Not love, but, may be, like! You'll look at least on love's remains, A grave's one violet: Your look? that pays a thousand pains. What's death? You'll love me yet!

Peace In A Palace

Alfred Noyes

"You were weeping in the night," said the Emperor, "Weeping in your sleep, I am told." "It was nothing but a dream," said the Empress; But her face grew gray and old. "You thought you saw our German God defeated?" "Oh, no!" she said. "I saw no lightnings fall. I dreamed of a whirlpool of green water, Where something had gone down. That was all. "All but the whimper of the sea gulls flying, Endlessly round and round, Waiting for the faces, the faces from the darkness, The dreadful rising faces of the drowned. "It was nothing but a dream," said the Empress. "I thought I was walking on the sea; And the foam rushed up in a wild smother, And a crowd of little faces looked at me. They were drowning! They were drowning," said the Empress, "And they stretched their feeble arms to the sky; But the worst was--they mistook me for their mother, And cried as my children used to cry. "Nothing but a whimper of the sea-gulls flying, Endlessly round and round, With the cruel yellow beaks that were waiting for the faces, The little floating faces of the drowned." "It was nothing but a dream," said the Emperor, "So why should you weep, dear, eh?"-- "Oh, I saw the red letters on a life belt That the green sea washed my way!"-- "What were they?" said the Emperor. "What were they?"-- "Some of them were hidden," said the Empress, "But I plainly saw the L and the U!" "In God's name, stop!" said the Emperor. "You told me that it was not true! "Told me that you dreamed of the sea gulls flying, Endlessly round and round, Waiting for the faces, and the eyes in the faces, The eyes of the children that we drowned. "Kiss me and forget it," said the Emperor, "Dry your tears on the tassel of my sword. I am going to offer peace to my people, And abdicate, perhaps, as overlord. I shall now take up My Cross as Count of Prussia-- Which is not a heavy burden, you'll agree. Why, before the twenty million dead are rotten There'll be yachting days again for you and me. Cheer up! It would mean a rope for anyone but Me." "Oh, take care!" said the Empress. "They are flying, Endlessly round and round. They have finished with the faces, the dreadful little faces, The little eyeless faces of the drowned."

You'd Entertain The Universe In Bed

Charles Baudelaire

You'd entertain the universe in bed, Foul woman; ennui makes you mean of soul. To exercise your jaws at this strange sport Each day you work a heart between your teeth. Your eyes, illuminated like boutiques Or blazing stanchions at a public fair, Use haughtily a power not their own, With no awareness of their beauty's law. Blind, deaf machine, fertile in cruelties! Valuable tool, that drinks the whole world's blood, Why are you not ashamed, how have you not In mirrors seen your many charms turn pale? The magnitude of all your evil schemes, Has this, then, never shrunk your heart with fear, When Nature, mighty in her secret plans, Makes use of you, o woman! queen of sins! Of you, vile beast - to mould a genius? O filthy grandeur! o sublime disgrace!

The Meditation Of The Old Fisherman

William Butler Yeats

You waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play, Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart; In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay, i(When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.) The herring are not in the tides as they were of old; My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the-cart That carried the take to Sligo town to be sold, i(When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.) And ah, you proud maiden, you are not so fair when his oar Is heard on the water, as they were, the proud and apart, Who paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore, i(When) I i(was) a boy i(with never) a i(crack in my heart.)

Five Criticisms - IV.

Alfred Noyes

(On Certain Realists.) You with the quick sardonic eye For all the mockeries of life, Beware, in this dark masque of things that seem, Lest even that tragic irony, Which you discern in this our mortal strife, Trick you and trap you, also, with a dream. Last night I saw a dead man borne along The city streets, passing a boisterous throng That never ceased to laugh and shout and dance: And yet, and yet, For all the poison bitter minds might brew From themes like this, I knew That the stern Truth would not permit her glance Thus to be foiled by flying straws of chance, For her keen eyes on deeper skies are set, And laws that tragic ironists forget. She saw the dead man's life, from birth to death,-- All that he knew of love and sin and pain, Success and failure (not as this world sees), His doubts, his passions, inner loss and gain, And borne on darker tides of constant law Beyond the margin of this life she saw All that had left his body with the breath. These things, to her, were still realities. If any mourned for him unseen, She saw them, too. If none, she'd not pretend His clay were colder, or his God less true, Or that his grave, at length, would be less green. She'd not deny The boundless depths of her eternal sky Brooding above a boundless universe, Because he seemed to man's unseeing eye Going a little further to fare worse; Nor would she assume he lacked that unseen friend Whom even the tragic ironists declare Were better than the seen, in his last end. Oh, then, beware, beware, Lest in the strong name of "reality" You mock yourselves anew with shapes of air, Lest it be you, agnostics, who re-write The fettering creeds of night, Affirm you know your own Unknowable, And lock the wing'd soul in a new hell; Lest it be you, lip-worshippers of Truth, Who break the heart of youth; Lest it be you, the realists, who fight With shadows, and forget your own pure light; Lest it be you who, with a little shroud Snatched from the sightless faces of the dead, Hoodwink the world, and keep the mourner bowed In dust, real dust, with stones, real stones, for bread; Lest, as you look one eighth of an inch beneath The yellow skin of death, You dream yourselves discoverers of the skull That old memento mori of our faith; Lest it be you who hunt a flying wraith Through this dissolving stuff of hill and cloud; Lest it be you, who, at the last, annul Your covenant with your kind; Lest it be you who darken heart and mind, Sell the strong soul in bondage to a dream, And fetter us once more to things that seem.

Juanita

Joaquin Miller

You will come, my bird, Bonita? Come! For I by steep and stone Have built such nest for you, Juanita, As not eagle bird hath known. Rugged! Rugged as Parnassus! Rude, as all roads I have trod Yet are steeps and stone-strewn passes Smooth o'er-head, and nearest God. Here black thunders of my ca'on Shake its walls in Titan wars! Here white sea-born clouds companion With such peaks as know the stars! Here madrona, manzanita Here the snarling chaparral House and hang o'er steeps, Juanita, Where the gaunt wolf loved to dwell! Dear, I took these trackless masses Fresh from Him who fashioned them; Wrought in rock, and hewed fair passes, Flower set, as sets a gem. Aye, I built in woe. God willed it; Woe that passeth ghosts of guilt; Yet I built as His birds builded Builded, singing as I built. All is finished! Roads of flowers Wait your loyal little feet. All completed? Nay, the hours Till you come are incomplete. Steep below me lies the valley, Deep below me lies the town, Where great sea-ships ride and rally, And the world walks up and down. O, the sea of lights far streaming When the thousand flags are furled When the gleaming bay lies dreaming As it duplicates the world! You will come, my dearest, truest? Come, my sovereign queen of ten; My blue skies will then be bluest; My white rose be whitest then: Then the song! Ah, then the sabre Flashing up the walls of night! Hate of wrong and love of neighbor Rhymes of battle for the Right!

Sonnets: Idea XI

Michael Drayton

You're not alone when you are still alone; O God! from you that I could private be! Since you one were, I never since was one; Since you in me, myself since out of me. Transported from myself into your being, Though either distant, present yet to either; Senseless with too much joy, each other seeing; And only absent when we are together. Give me my self, and take your self again! Devise some means but how I may forsake you! So much is mine that doth with you remain, That taking what is mine, with me I take you. You do bewitch me! O that I could fly From my self you, or from your own self I!

Lighting The Fire

John Frederick Freeman

You were a gipsy as you bent Your dark hair over the black grate. Hardly the west light above the hill Showed your shadow, crooked and still. The bellows hissed, and one bright spark Deepened the hasty dark. The bellows hissed, and the old smell Crept on the air of smoking peat, And round the spark a bubbling flame Grew bright and loud. Sweeping the gloom Lunatic shadows fled and came Whirling about the room. Then as you raised your head I saw In the clear light of the bubbling fire Your dark hair all lined with the gray Sprinkled by years and sorrow and pain ... Till as the bellows idle lay Shadow swept back again.

The Temple Dancing Girl

Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

You will be mine; those lightly dancing feet, Falling as softly on the careless street As the wind-loosened petals of a flower, Will bring you here, at the Appointed Hour. And all the Temple's little links and laws Will not for long protect your loveliness. I have a stronger force to aid my cause, Nature's great Law, to love and to possess! Throughout those sleepless watches, when I lay Wakeful, desiring what I might not see, I knew (it helped those hours, from dusk to day), In this one thing, Fate would be kind to me. You will consent, through all my veins like wine This prescience flows; your lips meet mine above, Your clear soft eyes look upward into mine Dim in a silent ecstasy of love. The clustered softness of your waving hair, That curious paleness which enchants me so, And all your delicate strength and youthful air, Destiny will compel you to bestow! Refuse, withdraw, and hesitate awhile, Your young reluctance does but fan the flame; My partner, Love, waits, with a tender smile, Who play against him play a losing game. I, strong in nothing else, have strength in this, The subtlest, most resistless, force we know Is aiding me; and you must stoop and kiss: The genius of the race will have it so! Yet, make it not too long, nor too intense My thirst; lest I should break beneath the strain, And the worn nerves, and over-wearied sense, Enjoy not what they spent themselves to gain. Lest, in the hour when you consent to share That human passion Beauty makes divine, I, over worn, should find you over fair, Lest I should die before I make you mine. You will consent, those slim, reluctant feet, Falling as lightly on the careless street As the white petals of a wind-worn flower, Will bring you here, at the Appointed Hour.

Will

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

You will be what you will to be; Let failure find its false content In that poor word "environment," But spirit scorns it, and is free, It masters time, it conquers space, It cows that boastful trickster Chance, And bids the tyrant Circumstance Uncrown and fill a servant's place. The human Will, that force unseen, The offspring of a deathless Soul, Can hew the way to any goal, Though walls of granite intervene. Be not impatient in delay, But wait as one who understands; When spirit rises and commands, The gods are ready to obey. The river seeking for the sea Confronts the dam and precipice, Yet knows it cannot fail or miss; You will be what you will to be!

Atonement.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove

You were a red rose then, I know, Red as her wine--yea, redder still,-- Say rather her blood; and ages ago (You know how destiny hath its will) I placed you deep in her gorgeous hair, And left you to wither there. Wine and blood and a red, red rose,-- Feast and song and a long, long sleep;-- And which of us dreamed at the drama's close That the unforgetful years would keep Our sin and their vengeance laid away As a gift to this bitter day? Now you are white as the mountain snow, White as the hand that I fold you in, And none but the angels of God may know That either has once been stained with sin; It was blood and wine in the old, old years, But now it is only tears. And so at the end of our several ways We have met once more, and the truth is clear That our heart's own blood no surer pays For our sin in the past than atonement here; But the end has come as God knows best: Now we shall be at rest.

The Exposed Nest

Robert Lee Frost

You were forever finding some new play. So when I saw you down on hands and knees I the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay, Trying, I thought, to set it up on end, I went to show you how to make it stay, If that was your idea, against the breeze, And, if you asked me, even help pretend To make it root again and grow afresh. But 'twas no make-believe with you today, Nor was the grass itself your real concern, Though I found your hand full of wilted fern, Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clovers. 'Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground The cutter-bar had just gone champing over (Miraculously without tasking flesh) And left defenseless to the heat and light. You wanted to restore them to their right Of something interposed between their sight And too much world at once, could means be found. The way the nest-full every time we stirred Stood up to us as to a mother-bird Whose coming home has been too long deferred, Made me ask would the mother-bird return And care for them in such a change of scene And might out meddling make her more afraid. That was a thing we could not wait to learn. We saw the risk we took in doing good, But dared not spare to do the best we could Though harm should come of it; so built the screen You had begun, and gave them back their shade. All this to prove we cared. Why is there then No more to tell? We turned to other things. I haven't any memory, have you?, Of ever coming to the place again To see if the birds lived the first night through, And so at last to learn to use their wings.

Expectation

Paul Laurence Dunbar

You 'll be wonderin' whut 's de reason I 's a grinnin' all de time, An' I guess you t'ink my sperits Mus' be feelin' mighty prime. Well, I 'fess up, I is tickled As a puppy at his paws. But you need n't think I's crazy, I ain' laffin' 'dout a cause. You's a wonderin' too, I reckon, Why I does n't seem to eat, An' I notice you a lookin' Lak you felt completely beat When I 'fuse to tek de bacon, An' don' settle on de ham. Don' you feel no feah erbout me, Jes' keep eatin', an' be ca'm. Fu' I's waitin' an' I's watchin' 'Bout a little t'ing I see-- D' othah night I's out a walkin' An' I passed a 'simmon tree. Now I's whettin' up my hongry, An' I's laffin' fit to kill, Fu' de fros' done turned de 'simmons, An' de possum 's eat his fill. He done go'ged hisse'f owdacious, An' he stayin' by de tree! Don' you know, ol' Mistah Possum Dat you gittin' fat fu' me? 'T ain't no use to try to 'spute it, 'Case I knows you's gittin' sweet Wif dat 'simmon flavoh thoo you, So I's waitin' fu' yo' meat. An' some ebenin' me an Towsah Gwine to come an' mek a call, We jes' drap in onexpected Fu' to shek yo' han', dat's all. Oh, I knows dat you 'll be tickled, Seems lak I kin see you smile, So pu'haps I mought pu'suade you Fu' to visit us a while.

The Ghost At The Second Bridge

Henry Lawson

You'd call the man a senseless fool, A blockhead or an ass, Who'd dare to say he saw the ghost Of Mount Victoria Pass; But I believe the ghost is there, For, if my eyes are right, I saw it once upon a ne'er- To-be-forgotten night. 'Twas in the year of eighty-nine, The day was nearly gone, The stars were shining, and the moon Is mentioned further on; I'd tramped as far as Hartley Vale, Tho' tired at the start, But coming back I got a lift In Johnny Jones's cart. 'Twas winter on the mountains then, The air was rather chill, And so we stopped beside the inn That stands below the hill. A fire was burning in the bar, And Johnny thought a glass Would give the tired horse a spell And help us up the Pass. Then Jimmy Bent came riding up, A tidy chap was Jim, He shouted twice, and so of course We had to shout for him. And when at last we said good-night He bet a vulgar quid That we would see the 'ghost in black', And sure enough we did. And as we climbed the stony pinch Below the Camel Bridge, We talked about the 'Girl in black' Who haunts the Second Bridge. We reached the fence that guards the cliff And passed the corner post, And Johnny like a senseless fool Kept harping on the ghost. 'She'll cross the moonlit road in haste And vanish down the track; Her long black hair hangs to her waist And she is dressed in black; Her face is white, a dull dead white, Her eyes are opened wide, She never looks to left or right, Or turns to either side.' I didn't b'lieve in ghosts at all, Tho' I was rather young, But still I wished with all my heart That Jack would hold his tongue. The time and place, as you will say, ('Twas twelve o'clock almost), Were both historically fa- Vourable for a ghost. But have you seen the Second Bridge Beneath the 'Camel's Back'? It fills a gap that broke the ridge When convicts made the track; And o'er the right old Hartley Vale In homely beauty lies, And o'er the left the mighty walls Of Mount Victoria rise. And there's a spot above the bridge, Just where the track is steep, From which poor Convict Govett rode To christen Govett's Leap; And here a teamster killed his wife, For those old days were rough, And here a dozen others had Been murdered, right enough. The lonely moon was over all And she was shining well, At angles from the sandstone wall The shifting moonbeams fell. In short, the shifting moonbeams beamed, The air was still as death, Save when the listening silence seemed To speak beneath its breath. The tangled bushes were not stirred Because there was no wind, But now and then I thought I heard A startling noise behind. Then Johnny Jones began to quake; His face was like the dead. 'Don't look behind, for heaven's sake! The ghost is there!' he said. He stared ahead, his eyes were fixed; He whipped the horse like mad. 'You fool!' I cried, 'you're only mixed; A drop too much you've had. I'll never see a ghost, I swear, But I will find the cause.' I turned to see if it was there, And sure enough it was! Its look appeared to plead for aid (As far as I could see), Its hands were on the tailboard laid, Its eyes were fixed on me. The face, it cannot be denied Was white, a dull dead white, The great black eyes were opened wide And glistened in the light. I stared at Jack; he stared ahead And madly plied the lash. To show I wasn't scared, I said, 'Why, Jack, we've made a mash.' I tried to laugh; 'twas vain to try. The try was very lame; And, tho' I wouldn't show it, I Was frightened, all the same. 'She's mashed,' said Jack, 'I do not doubt, But 'tis a lonely place; And then you see it might turn out A breach of promise case.' He flogged the horse until it jibbed And stood as one resigned, And then he struck the road and ran And left the cart behind. Now, Jack and I since infancy Had shared our joys and cares, And so I was resolved that we Should share each other's scares. We raced each other all the way And never slept that night, And when we told the tale next day They said that we were, intoxicated.

Paul Verlaine

Ernest Christopher Dowson

You would have understood me, had you waited; I could have loved you, dear! as well as he: Had we not been impatient, dear! and fated Always to disagree. What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter: Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid. Though all the words we ever spake were bitter, Shall I reproach you dead? Nay, let this earth, your portion, likewise cover All the old anger, setting us apart: Always, in all, in truth was I your lover; Always, I held your heart. I have met other women who were tender, As you were cold, dear! with a grace as rare. Think you, I turned to them, or made surrender, I who had found you fair? Had we been patient, dear! ah, had you waited, I had fought death for you, better than he: But from the very first, dear! we were fated Always to disagree. Late, late, I come to you, now death discloses Love that in life was not to be our part: On your low lying mound between the roses, Sadly I cast my heart. I would not waken you: nay! this is fitter; Death and the darkness give you unto me; Here we who loved so, were so cold and bitter, Hardly can disagree.

Indignation" Jones

Edgar Lee Masters

You would not believe, would you That I came from good Welsh stock? That I was purer blooded than the white trash here? And of more direct lineage than the New Englanders And Virginians of Spoon River? You would not believe that I had been to school And read some books. You saw me only as a run-down man With matted hair and beard And ragged clothes. Sometimes a man's life turns into a cancer From being bruised and continually bruised, And swells into a purplish mass Like growths on stalks of corn. Here was I, a carpenter, mired in a bog of life Into which I walked, thinking it was a meadow, With a slattern for a wife, and poor Minerva, my daughter, Whom you tormented and drove to death. So I crept, crept, like a snail through the days Of my life. No more you hear my footsteps in the morning, Resounding on the hollow sidewalk Going to the grocery store for a little corn meal And a nickel's worth of bacon.

The Daisies.

Kate Greenaway

You very fine Miss Molly, What will the daisies say, If you carry home so many Of their little friends to-day? Perhaps you take a sister, Perhaps you take a brother, Or two little daisies who Were fond of one another.

You Will Tell Me Where Is Conrad?

William McKendree Carleton

[From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book.] Let me a moment indite Scenes that I witnessed one night: ["You Will Tell Me Where Is Conrad?"] "You will tell me where is Conrad?" said an old man, bent and gray, While the flames were wildly dancing, and the walls were giving way. "I haf heard some ones was buried - underneath the ruins fell; He was in de topmost story - ach, mein Gott! I luf him well! "I will tell you how you knew him: he had full and laughing eye, And his face was smooth and smiling - and he was too young to die. "Hair he had like clouds at sunset when anodher day is done, And I luf him - how I luf him! and he is mein only son. "Say, Policeman, tell me truly that this young man you did see, And I all the money gif you, such as I could bring with me. "Tell me that he anxious acted - that he hunted far and long, Like as children would be calling for their fadher in a throng; "Or he wounded was, pray tell me - in the hospital to lie? - I will just now hasten to him, and I not will let him die! "Tell me - oh, you must not told me - dead you haf my Conrad see? Yet if so is I can stand that - I did long a soldier be. "Only - Death, we do not fear him when we hear the bullets sing, But to haf my boy killed this way is a rather different thing. "Only - that his poor old mudher, she waits home all full of fear, And I cannot there be going, till I take good news from here! "Young he was when we did bring him from the Rhine land o'er the sea; I did lif for her and Conrad - she did lif for him and me. "Other ones we bring not with us: Gott he says, 'These more be mine;' And we left them all a-sleeping 'mong the vineyards of the Rhine. "He haf not a cross word gif us - he haf luf us every day, And if he to-night comes home not, 'tis the first that he's away. "Let me to that fire, Policeman! I care what for walls or brand? Maybe he in there be living - reaching for his fadher's hand! "Let me past, I say, Policeman! I haf work there to be done! Let go me or I will strike you! - is it that you haf no son?" *            *            *            *            * Still the flames were like a furnace, and the walls were crashing loud, And the old man, held in safety, fainted 'mid the trembling crowd. And the mother watched and wondered, with her great eyes scarcely wet; But, half dazed amid her sorrow, waits for Conrad even yet.

Slain

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

You who are still and white And cold like stone; For whom the unfailing light Is spent and done; For whom no more the breath Of dawn, nor evenfall Nor Spring, nor love, nor death Matter at all; Who were so strong and young And brave and wise, And on the dark are flung With darkened eyes;

End Of The Year 1912

Thomas Hardy

You were here at his young beginning, You are not here at his aged end; Off he coaxed you from Life's mad spinning, Lest you should see his form extend Shivering, sighing, Slowly dying, And a tear on him expend. So it comes that we stand lonely In the star-lit avenue, Dropping broken lipwords only, For we hear no songs from you, Such as flew here For the new year Once, while six bells swung thereto.

How Is It?

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

You who are loudly crying out for peace, You who are wanting love to vanquish hate, How is it in the four walls of your home The while you wait? Do those who form your household welcome your approach in the morning As the earth welcomes the presence of dawn, Or do they dread your coming lest you censure and complain? Do you begin the day with praise to God for each blessing you possess, and do you speak frequent words of commendation to those about you? Do those you claim to love often hear you talking in love's language, Or is your softest tone and your sweetest speech saved for the sometime guest, While the harsh voice and the sharp retort are used with those you love the best? You who are praying for the Christ's return And for the coming of the Promised Day, How is it in the four walls of your home The while you pray? Are you trying to make your home a reflection of what you believe heaven will be? Unless you are you will never find heaven anywhere; The foundations of our heavenly mansions must first be built on earth. Unless you are striving to put in use some of the angelic virtues here and now, No angelhood will be accorded you hereafter. Unless you are illustrating your desire for peace by a peaceful, love-ruled home, You have no right to clamour for a cessation of hostilities among nations; Nations are only chains of individuals. When each individual expresses nothing but love and peace in his daily life, there will be no more war. You who are loudly crying out for peace, You who are wanting love to vanquish hate, How is it in the four walls of your home The while you wait?

To Flight-Lieutenant Robinson, V.C.

R. C. Lehmann

You with the hawk's eyes and the nerves of steel, How was it with you when the hurried word Roused you and sent you swiftly forth to deal A blow for justice? Sure your pulses stirred, And all your being leapt to meet the call Which bade you strike nor spare Where poised in air Murder and ravening flame were hid intent to fall. Alone upon your fearful task you flew, Where in the vault of heaven the high stars swing, Alone and upward, lost to mortal view, Winding about the assassin craft a ring Of fateful motion, till at last you sped Through the far tracts of gloom The bolt of doom, Shattering the dastard foe to earth with all his dead. For this we thank you, and we bid you know That henceforth in the air, by day or night, A myriad hopes of ours, where'er you go, Rise as companions of your soaring flight; And well we know that when there comes the need A host of men like you, As staunch, as true, Will rush to prove the daring of the island breed.

You Will Hear Thunder

Anna Akhmatova

You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: she wanted storms. The rim Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson, And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire. That day in Moscow, it will all come true, when, for the last time, I take my leave, And hasten to the heights that I have longed for, Leaving my shadow still to be with you.

Cynicus To W. Shakespeare

James Kenneth Stephen

You wrote a line too much, my sage, Of seers the first, and first of sayers; For only half the world's a stage, And only all the women players.

Narrative And Dramatic The Wanderings Of Oisin

William Butler Yeats

Book I i(S. Patrick.) You who are bent, and bald, and blind, With a heavy heart and a wandering mind, Have known three centuries, poets sing, Of dalliance with a demon thing. i(Oisin.) Sad to remember, sick with years, The swift innumerable spears, The horsemen with their floating hair, And bowls of barley, honey, and wine, Those merry couples dancing in tune, And the white body that lay by mine; But the tale, though words be lighter than air. Must live to be old like the wandering moon. Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there, When we followed a deer with our baying hounds. With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair, And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds, Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill Where passionate Maeve is stony-still; And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode On a horse with bridle of findrinny; And like a sunset were her lips, A stormy sunset on doomed ships; A citron colour gloomed in her hair, But down to her feet white vesture flowed, And with the glimmering crimson glowed Of many a figured embroidery; And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell That wavered like the summer streams, As her soft bosom rose and fell. i(S. Patrick.) You are still wrecked among heathen dreams. i(Oisin.) "Why do you wind no horn?' she said "And every hero droop his head? The hornless deer is not more sad That many a peaceful moment had, More sleek than any granary mouse, In his own leafy forest house Among the waving fields of fern: The hunting of heroes should be glad.' 'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn, "We think on Oscar's pencilled urn, And on the heroes lying slain On Gabhra's raven-covered plain; But where are your noble kith and kin, And from what country do you ride?' "My father and my mother are Aengus and Edain, my own name Niamh, and my country far Beyond the tumbling of this tide.' "What dream came with you that you came Through bitter tide on foam-wet feet? Did your companion wander away From where the birds of Aengus wing?' Thereon did she look haughty and sweet: "I have not yet, war-weary king, Been spoken of with any man; Yet now I choose, for these four feet Ran through the foam and ran to this That I might have your son to kiss.' "Were there no better than my son That you through all that foam should run?' "I loved no man, though kings besought, Until the Danaan poets brought Rhyme that rhymed upon Oisin's name, And now I am dizzy with the thought Of all that wisdom and the fame Of battles broken by his hands, Of stories builded by his words That are like coloured Asian birds At evening in their rainless lands.' O Patrick, by your brazen bell, There was no limb of mine but fell Into a desperate gulph of love! 'You only will I wed,' I cried, "And I will make a thousand songs, And set your name all names above, And captives bound with leathern thongs Shall kneel and praise you, one by one, At evening in my western dun.' "O Oisin, mount by me and ride To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide, Where men have heaped no burial-mounds, And the days pass by like a wayward tune, Where broken faith has never been known And the blushes of first love never have flown; And there I will give you a hundred hounds; No mightier creatures bay at the moon; And a hundred robes of murmuring silk, And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep Whose long wool whiter than sea-froth flows, And a hundred spears and a hundred bows, And oil and wine and honey and milk, And always never-anxious sleep; While a hundred youths, mighty of limb, But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife, And a hundred ladies, merry as birds, Who when they dance to a fitful measure Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds, Shall follow your horn and obey your whim, And you shall know the Danaan leisure; And Niamh be with you for a wife.' Then she sighed gently, "It grows late. Music and love and sleep await, Where I would be when the white moon climbs, The red sun falls and the world grows dim.' And then I mounted and she bound me With her triumphing arms around me, And whispering to herself enwound me; He shook himself and neighed three times: Caoilte, Conan, and Finn came near, And wept, and raised their lamenting hands, And bid me stay, with many a tear; But we rode out from the human lands. In what far kingdom do you go' Ah Fenians, with the shield and bow? Or are you phantoms white as snow, Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow? O you, with whom in sloping vallcys, Or down the dewy forest alleys, I chased at morn the flying deer, With whom I hurled the hurrying spear, And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle, And broke the heaving ranks of battle! And Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair, Where are you with your long rough hair? You go not where the red deer feeds, Nor tear the foemen from their steeds. i(S. Patrick.) Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head Companions long accurst and dead, And hounds for centuries dust and air. i(Oisin.) We galloped over the glossy sea: I know not if days passed or hours, And Niamh sang continually Danaan songs, and their dewy showers Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound, Lulled weariness, and softly round My human sorrow her white arms wound. We galloped; now a hornless deer Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound All pearly white, save one red ear; And now a lady rode like the wind With an apple of gold in her tossing hand; And a beautiful young man followed behind With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair. "Were these two born in the Danaan land, Or have they breathed the mortal air?' "Vex them no longer,' Niamh said, And sighing bowed her gentle head, And sighing laid the pearly tip Of one long finger on my lip. But now the moon like a white rose shone In the pale west, and the sun'S rim sank, And clouds atrayed their rank on rank About his fading crimson ball: The floor of Almhuin's hosting hall Was not more level than the sea, As, full of loving fantasy, And with low murmurs, we rode on, Where many a trumpet-twisted shell That in immortal silence sleeps Dreaming of her own melting hues, Her golds, her ambers, and her blues, Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps. But now a wandering land breeze came And a far sound of feathery quires; It seemed to blow from the dying flame, They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires. The horse towards the music raced, Neighing along the lifeless waste; Like sooty fingers, many a tree Rose ever out of the warm sea; And they were trembling ceaselessly, As though they all were beating time, Upon the centre of the sun, To that low laughing woodland rhyme. And, now our wandering hours were done, We cantered to the shore, and knew The reason of the trembling trees: Round every branch the song-birds flew, Or clung thereon like swarming bees; While round the shore a million stood Like drops of frozen rainbow light, And pondered in a soft vain mood Upon their shadows in the tide, And told the purple deeps their pride, And murmured snatches of delight; And on the shores were many boats With bending sterns and bending bows, And carven figures on their prows Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats, And swans with their exultant throats: And where the wood and waters meet We tied the horse in a leafy clump, And Niamh blew three merry notes Out of a little silver trump; And then an answering whispering flew Over the bare and woody land, A whisper of impetuous feet, And ever nearer, nearer grew; And from the woods rushed out a band Of men and ladies, hand in hand, And singing, singing all together; Their brows were white as fragrant milk, Their cloaks made out of yellow silk, And trimmed with many a crimson feather; And when they saw the cloak I wore Was dim with mire of a mortal shore, They fingered it and gazed on me And laughed like murmurs of the sea; But Niamh with a swift distress Bid them away and hold their peace; And when they heard her voice they ran And knelt there, every girl and man, And kissed, as they would never cease, Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress. She bade them bring us to the hall Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun, A Druid dream of the end of days When the stars are to wane and the world be done. They led us by long and shadowy ways Where drops of dew in myriads fall, And tangled creepers every hour Blossom in some new crimson flower, And once a sudden laughter sprang From all their lips, and once they sang Together, while the dark woods rang, And made in all their distant parts, With boom of bees in honey-marts, A rumour of delighted hearts. And once a lady by my side Gave me a harp, and bid me sing, And touch the laughing silver string; But when I sang of human joy A sorrow wrapped each merry face, And, patrick! by your beard, they wept, Until one came, a tearful boy; "A sadder creature never stept Than this strange human bard,' he cried; And caught the silver harp away, And, weeping over the white strings, hurled It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place That kept dim waters from the sky; And each one said, with a long, long sigh, "O saddest harp in all the world, Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!' And now, still sad, we came to where A beautiful young man dreamed within A house of wattles, clay, and skin; One hand upheld his beardless chin, And one a sceptre flashing out Wild flames of red and gold and blue, Like to a merry wandering rout Of dancers leaping in the air; And men and ladies knelt them there And showed their eyes with teardrops dim, And with low murmurs prayed to him, And kissed the sceptre with red lips, And touched it with their finger-tips. He held that flashing sceptre up. "Joy drowns the twilight in the dew, And fills with stars night's purple cup, And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn, And stirs the young kid's budding horn, And makes the infant ferns unwrap, And for the peewit paints his cap, And rolls along the unwieldy sun, And makes the little planets run: And if joy were not on the earth, There were an end of change and birth, And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die, And in some gloomy barrow lie Folded like a frozen fly; Then mock at Death and Time with glances And wavering arms and wandering dances. "Men's hearts of old were drops of flame That from the saffron morning came, Or drops of silver joy that fell Out of the moon's pale twisted shell; But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves, And toss and turn in narrow caves; But here there is nor law nor rule, Nor have hands held a weary tool; And here there is nor Change nor Death, But only kind and merry breath, For joy is God and God is joy.' With one long glance for girl and boy And the pale blossom of the moon, He fell into a Druid swoon. And in a wild and sudden dance We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance And swept out of the wattled hall And came to where the dewdrops fall Among the foamdrops of the sea, And there we hushed the revelry; And, gathering on our brows a frown, Bent all our swaying bodies down, And to the waves that glimmer by That sloping green De Danaan sod Sang, "God is joy and joy is God, And things that have grown sad are wicked, And things that fear the dawn of the morrow Or the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.' We danced to where in the winding thicket The damask roses, bloom on bloom, Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom. And bending over them softly said, Bending over them in the dance, With a swift and friendly glance From dewy eyes: "Upon the dead Fall the leaves of other roses, On the dead dim earth encloses: But never, never on our graves, Heaped beside the glimmering waves, Shall fall the leaves of damask roses. For neither Death nor Change comes near us, And all listless hours fear us, And we fear no dawning morrow, Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.' The dance wound through the windless woods; The ever-summered solitudes; Until the tossing arms grew still Upon the woody central hill; And, gathered in a panting band, We flung on high each waving hand, And sang unto the starry broods. In our raised eyes there flashed a glow Of milky brightness to and fro As thus our song arose: "You stars, Across your wandering ruby cars Shake the loose reins: you slaves of God. He rules you with an iron rod, He holds you with an iron bond, Each one woven to the other, Each one woven to his brother Like bubbles in a frozen pond; But we in a lonely land abide Unchainable as the dim tide, With hearts that know nor law nor rule, And hands that hold no wearisome tool, Folded in love that fears no morrow, Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.' O Patrick! for a hundred years I chased upon that woody shore The deer, the badger, and the boar. O patrick! for a hundred years At evening on the glimmering sands, Beside the piled-up hunting spears, These now outworn and withered hands Wrestled among the island bands. O patrick! for a hundred years We went a-fishing in long boats With bending sterns and bending bows, And carven figures on their prows Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats. O patrick! for a hundred years The gentle Niamh was my wife; But now two things devour my life; The things that most of all I hate: Fasting and prayers. i(S. Patrick.) Tell On. i(Oisin.) Yes, yes, For these were ancient Oisin's fate Loosed long ago from Heaven's gate, For his last days to lie in wait. When one day by the tide I stood, I found in that forgetfulness Of dreamy foam a staff of wood From some dead warrior's broken lance: I tutned it in my hands; the stains Of war were on it, and I wept, Remembering how the Fenians stept Along the blood-bedabbled plains, Equal to good or grievous chance: Thereon young Niamh softly came And caught my hands, but spake no word Save only many times my name, In murmurs, like a frighted bird. We passed by woods, and lawns of clover, And found the horse and bridled him, For we knew well the old was over. I heard one say, "His eyes grow dim With all the ancient sorrow of men'; And wrapped in dreams rode out again With hoofs of the pale findrinny Over the glimmering purple sea. Under the golden evening light, The Immortals moved among thc fountains By rivers and the woods' old night; Some danced like shadows on the mountains Some wandered ever hand in hand; Or sat in dreams on the pale strand, Each forehead like an obscure star Bent down above each hooked knee, And sang, and with a dreamy gaze Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze Was slumbering half in the sea-ways; And, as they sang, the painted birds Kept time with their bright wings and feet; Like drops of honey came their words, But fainter than a young lamb's bleat. "An old man stirs the fire to a blaze, In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother. He has over-lingered his welcome; the days, Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other; He hears the storm in the chimney above, And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold, While his heart still dreams of battle and love, And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old. But We are apart in the grassy places, Where care cannot trouble the least of our days, Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces, Or love's first tenderness die in our gaze. The hare grows old as she plays in the sun And gazes around her with eyes of brightness; Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done She limps along in an aged whiteness; A storm of birds in the Asian trees Like tulips in the air a-winging, And the gentle waves of the summer seas, That raise their heads and wander singing, Must murmur at last, ""Unjust, unjust'; And ""My speed is a weariness,' falters the mouse, And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust, And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house. But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day When God shall come from the Sea with a sigh And bid the stars drop down from the sky, And the moon like a pale rose wither away.' ####### Book II ####### NOW, man of croziers, shadows called our names And then away, away, like whirling flames; And now fled by, mist-covered, without sound, The youth and lady and the deer and hound; "Gaze no more on the phantoms,' Niamh said, And kissed my eyes, and, swaying her bright head And her bright body, sang of faery and man Before God was or my old line began; Wars shadowy, vast, exultant; faeries of old Who wedded men with rings of Druid gold; And how those lovers never turn their eyes Upon the life that fades and flickers and dies, Yet love and kiss on dim shores far away Rolled round with music of the sighing spray: Yet sang no more as when, like a brown bee That has drunk full, she crossed the misty sea With me in her white arms a hundred years Before this day; for now the fall of tears Troubled her song. I do not know if days Or hours passed by, yet hold the morning rays Shone many times among the glimmering flowers Woven into her hair, before dark towers Rose in the darkness, and the white surf gleamed About them; and the horse of Faery screamed And shivered, knowing the Isle of Many Fears, Nor ceased until white Niamh stroked his ears And named him by sweet names. A foaming tide Whitened afar with surge, fan-formed and wide, Burst from a great door matred by many a blow From mace and sword and pole-axe, long ago When gods and giants warred. We rode between The seaweed-covered pillars; and the green And surging phosphorus alone gave light On our dark pathway, till a countless flight Of moonlit steps glimmered; and left and right Dark statues glimmered over the pale tide Upon dark thrones. Between the lids of one The imaged meteors had flashed and run And had disported in the stilly jet, And the fixed stars had dawned and shone and set, Since God made Time and Death and Sleep: the other Stretched his long arm to where, a misty smother, The stream churned, churned, and churned -- his lips apart, As though he told his never-slumbering heart Of every foamdrop on its misty way. Tying the horse to his vast foot that lay Half in the unvesselled sea, we climbed the stair And climbed so long, I thought the last steps were Hung from the morning star; when these mild words Fanned the delighted air like wings of birds: "My brothers spring out of their beds at morn, A-murmur like young partridge: with loud horn They chase the noontide deer; And when the dew-drowned stars hang in the air Look to long fishing-lines, or point and pare An ashen hunting spear. O sigh, O fluttering sigh, be kind to me; Flutter along the froth lips of the sea, And shores the froth lips wet: And stay a little while, and bid them weep: Ah, touch their blue-veined eyelids if they sleep, And shake their coverlet. When you have told how I weep endlessly, Flutter along the froth lips of the sea And home to me again, And in the shadow of my hair lie hid, And tell me that you found a man unbid, The saddest of all men.' A lady with soft eyes like funeral tapers, And face that seemed wrought out of moonlit vapours, And a sad mouth, that fear made tremulous As any ruddy moth, looked down on us; And she with a wave-rusted chain was tied To two old eagles, full of ancient pride, That with dim eyeballs stood on either side. Few feathers were on their dishevelled wings, For their dim minds were with the ancient things. "I bring deliverance,' pearl-pale Niamh said. "Neither the living, nor the unlabouring dead, Nor the high gods who never lived, may fight My enemy and hope; demons for fright Jabber and scream about him in the night; For he is strong and crafty as the seas That sprang under the Seven Hazel Trees, And I must needs endure and hate and weep, Until the gods and demons drop asleep, Hearing Acdh touch thc mournful strings of gold.' "Is he So dreadful?' "Be not over-bold, But fly while still you may.' And thereon I: "This demon shall be battered till he die, And his loose bulk be thrown in the loud tide.' "Flee from him,' pearl-pale Niamh weeping cried, "For all men flee the demons'; but moved not My angry king-remembering soul one jot. There was no mightier soul of Heber's line; Now it is old and mouse-like. For a sign I burst the chain: still earless, neNeless, blind, Wrapped in the things of the unhuman mind, In some dim memory or ancient mood, Still earless, netveless, blind, the eagles stood. And then we climbed the stair to a high door; A hundred horsemen on the basalt floor Beneath had paced content: we held our way And stood within: clothed in a misty ray I saw a foam-white seagull drift and float Under the roof, and with a straining throat Shouted, and hailed him: he hung there a star, For no man's cry shall ever mount so far; Not even your God could have thrown down that hall; Stabling His unloosed lightnings in their stall, He had sat down and sighed with cumbered heart, As though His hour were come. We sought the patt That was most distant from the door; green slime Made the way slippery, and time on time Showed prints of sea-born scales. while down through it The captive's journeys to and fro were writ Like a small river, and where feet touched came A momentary gleam of phosphorus flame. Under the deepest shadows of the hall That woman found a ring hung on the wall, And in the ring a torch, and with its flare Making a world about her in the air, Passed under the dim doorway, out of sight, And came again, holding a second light Burning between her fingers, and in mine Laid it and sighed: I held a sword whose shine No centuries could dim, and a word ran Thereon in Ogham letters, "Manannan'; That sea-god's name, who in a deep content Sprang dripping, and, with captive demons sent Out of the sevenfold seas, built the dark hall Rooted in foam and clouds, and cried to all The mightier masters of a mightier race; And at his cry there came no milk-pale face Under a crown of thorns and dark with blood, But only exultant faces. Niamh stood With bowed head, trembling when the white blade shone, But she whose hours of tenderness were gone Had neither hope nor fear. I bade them hide Under the shadowS till the tumults died Of the loud-crashing and earth-shaking fight, Lest they should look upon some dreadful sight; And thrust the torch between the slimy flags. A dome made out of endless carven jags, Where shadowy face flowed into shadowy face, Looked down on me; and in the self-same place I waited hour by hour, and the high dome, Windowless, pillarless, multitudinous home Of faces, waited; and the leisured gaze Was loaded with the memory of days Buried and mighty. When through the great door The dawn came in, and glimmered on the floor With a pale light, I journeyed round the hall And found a door deep sunken in the wall, The least of doors; beyond on a dim plain A little mnnel made a bubbling strain, And on the runnel's stony and bare edge A dusky demon dry as a withered sedge Swayed, crooning to himself an unknown tongue: In a sad revelry he sang and swung Bacchant and mournful, passing to and fro His hand along the runnel's side, as though The flowers still grew there: far on the sea's waste Shaking and waving, vapour vapour chased, While high frail cloudlets, fed with a green light, Like drifts of leaves, immovable and bright, Hung in the passionate dawn. He slowly turned: A demon's leisure: eyes, first white, now burned Like wings of kingfishers; and he arose Barking. We trampled up and down with blows Of sword and brazen battle-axe, while day Gave to high noon and noon to night gave way; And when he knew the sword of Manannan Amid the shades of night, he changed and ran Through many shapes; I lunged at the smooth throat Of a great eel; it changed, and I but smote A fir-tree roaring in its leafless top; And thereupon I drew the livid chop Of a drowned dripping body to my breast; Horror from horror grew; but when the west Had surged up in a plumy fire, I drave Through heart and spine; and cast him in the wave Lest Niamh shudder. Full of hope and dread Those two came carrying wine and meat and bread, And healed my wounds with unguents out of flowers That feed white moths by some De Danaan shrine; Then in that hall, lit by the dim sea-shine, We lay on skins of otters, and drank wine, Brewed by the sea-gods, from huge cups that lay Upon the lips of sea-gods in their day; And then on heaped-up skins of otters slept. And when the sun once more in saffron stept, Rolling his flagrant wheel out of the deep, We sang the loves and angers without sleep, And all the exultant labours of the strong. But now the lying clerics murder song With barren words and flatteries of the weak. In what land do the powerless turn the beak Of ravening Sorrow, or the hand of Wrath? For all your croziers, they have left the path And wander in the storms and clinging snows, Hopeless for ever: ancient Oisin knows, For he is weak and poor and blind, and lies On the anvil of the world. i(S. Patrick.) Be still: the skies Are choked with thunder, lightning, and fierce wind, For God has heard, and speaks His angry mind; Go cast your body on the stones and pray, For He has wrought midnight and dawn and day. i(Oisin.) Saint, do you weep? I hear amid the thunder The Fenian horses; atmour torn asunder; Laughter and cries. The armies clash and shock, And now the daylight-darkening ravens flock. Cease, cease, O mournful, laughing Fenian horn! We feasted for three days. On the fourth morn I found, dropping sea-foam on the wide stair, And hung with slime, and whispering in his hair, That demon dull and unsubduable; And once more to a day-long battle fell, And at the sundown threw him in the surge, To lie until the fourth morn saw emerge His new-healed shape; and for a hundred years So watred, so feasted, with nor dreams nor fears, Nor languor nor fatigue: an endless feast, An endless war. The hundred years had ceased; I stood upon the stair: the surges bore A beech-bough to me, and my heart grew sore, Remembering how I had stood by white-haired Finn Under a beech at Almhuin and heard the thin Outcry of bats. And then young Niamh came Holding that horse, and sadly called my name; I mounted, and we passed over the lone And drifting greyness, while this monotone, Surly and distant, mixed inseparably Into the clangour of the wind and sea. "I hear my soul drop And Mananna's dark tower, stone after stone. Gather sea-slime and fall the seaward way, And the moon goad the waters night and day, That all be overthrown. "But till the moon has taken all, I wage War on the mightiest men under the skies, And they have fallen or fled, age after age. Light is man's love, and lighter is man's rage; His purpose drifts and dies.' And then lost Niamh murmured, "Love, we go To the Island of Forgetfulness, for lo! The Islands of Dancing and of Victories Are empty of all power.' "And which of these Is the Island of Content?' "None know,' she said; And on my bosom laid her weeping head. ######## Book III ######## FLED foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke, High as the Saddle-girth, covering away from our glances the tide; And those that fled, and that followed, from the foam- pale distance broke; The immortal desire of Immortals we saw in their faces, and sighed. I mused on the chase with the Fenians, and Bran, Sceolan, Lomair, And never a song sang Niamh, and over my finger-tips Came now the sliding of tears and sweeping of mist- cold hair, And now the warmth of sighs, and after the quiver of lips. Were we days long or hours long in riding, when, rolled in a grisly peace, An isle lay level before us, with dripping hazel and oak? And we stood on a sea's edge we saw not; for whiter than new-washed fleece Fled foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke. And we rode on the plains of the sea's edge; the sea's edge barren and grey, Grey sand on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees, Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away, Like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas. But the trees grew taller and closer, immense in their wrinkling bark; Dropping; a murmurous dropping; old silence and that one sound; For no live creatures lived there, no weasels moved in the dark: Long sighs arose in our spirits, beneath us bubbled the ground. And the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow night, For, as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world and the sun, Ceased on our hands and our faces, on hazel and oak leaf, the light, And the stars were blotted above us, and the whole of the world was one. Till the horse gave a whinny; for, cumbrous with stems of the hazel and oak, A valley flowed down from his hoofs, and there in the long grass lay, Under the starlight and shadow, a monstrous slumber- ing folk, Their naked and gleaming bodies poured out and heaped in the way. And by them were arrow and war-axe, arrow and shield and blade; And dew-blanched horns, in whose hollow a child of three years old Could sleep on a couch of rushes, and all inwrought and inlaid, And more comely than man can make them with bronze and silver and gold. And each of the huge white creatures was huger than fourscore men; The tops of their ears were feathered, their hands were the claws of birds, And, shaking the plumes of the grasses and the leaves of the mural glen, The breathing came from those bodies, long warless, grown whiter than curds. The wood was so Spacious above them, that He who has stars for His flocks Could fondle the leaves with His fingers, nor go from His dew-cumbered skies; So long were they sleeping, the owls had builded their nests in their locks, Filling the fibrous dimness with long generations of eyes. And over the limbs and the valley the slow owls wan- dered and came, Now in a place of star-fire, and now in a shadow-place wide; And the chief of the huge white creatures, his knees in the soft star-flame, Lay loose in a place of shadow: we drew the reins by his side. Golden the nails of his bird-clawS, flung loosely along the dim ground; In one was a branch soft-shining with bells more many than sighs In midst of an old man's bosom; owls ruffling and pacing around Sidled their bodies against him, filling the shade with their eyes. And my gaze was thronged with the sleepers; no, not since the world began, In realms where the handsome were many, nor in glamours by demons flung, Have faces alive with such beauty been known to the salt eye of man, Yet weary with passions that faded when the sevenfold seas were young. And I gazed on the bell-branch, sleep's forebear, far sung by the Sennachies. I saw how those slumbererS, grown weary, there camp- ing in grasses deep, Of wars with the wide world and pacing the shores of the wandering seas, Laid hands on the bell-branch and swayed it, and fed of unhuman sleep. Snatching the horn of Niamh, I blew a long lingering note. Came sound from those monstrous sleepers, a sound like the stirring of flies. He, shaking the fold of his lips, and heaving the pillar of his throat, Watched me with mournful wonder out of the wells of his eyes. I cried, "Come out of the shadow, king of the nails of gold! And tell of your goodly household and the goodly works of your hands, That we may muse in the starlight and talk of the battles of old; Your questioner, Oisin, is worthy, he comes from the Fenian lands.' Half open his eyes were, and held me, dull with the smoke of their dreams; His lips moved slowly in answer, no answer out of them came; Then he swayed in his fingers the bell-branch, slow dropping a sound in faint streams Softer than snow-flakes in April and piercing the mar- row like flame. Wrapt in the wave of that music, with weariness more than of earth, The moil of my centuries filled me; and gone like a sea-covered stone Were the memories of the whole of my sorrow and the memories of the whole of my mirth, And a softness came from the starlight and filled me full to the bone. In the roots of the grasses, the sorrels, I laid my body as low; And the pearl-pale Niamh lay by me, her brow on the midst of my breast; And the horse was gone in the distance, and years after years 'gan flow; Square leaves of the ivy moved over us, binding us down to our rest. And, man of the many white croziers, a century there I forgot How the fetlocks drip blocd in the battle, when the fallen on fallen lie rolled; How the falconer follows the falcon in the weeds of the heron's plot, And the name of the demon whose hammer made Conchubar's sword-blade of old. And, man of the many white croziers, a century there I forgot That the spear-shaft is made out of ashwood, the shield out of osier and hide; How the hammers spring on the anvil, on the spear- head's burning spot; How the slow, blue-eyed oxen of Finn low sadly at evening tide. But in dreams, mild man of the croziers, driving the dust with their throngs, Moved round me, of seamen or landsmen, all who are winter tales; Came by me the kings of the Red Branch, with roaring of laughter and songs, Or moved as they moved once, love-making or piercing the tempest with sails. Came Blanid, Mac Nessa, tall Fergus who feastward of old time slunk, Cook Barach, the traitor; and warward, the spittle on his beard never dry, Dark Balor, as old as a forest, car-borne, his mighty head sunk Helpless, men lifting the lids of his weary and death- making eye. And by me, in soft red raiment, the Fenians moved in loud streams, And Grania, walking and smiling, sewed with her needle of bone. So lived I and lived not, so wrought I and wrought not, with creatures of dreams, In a long iron sleep, as a fish in the water goes dumb as a stone. At times our slumber was lightened. When the sun was on silver or gold; When brushed with the wings of the owls, in the dim- ness they love going by; When a glow-worm was green on a grass-leaf, lured from his lair in the mould; Half wakening, we lifted our eyelids, and gazed on the grass with a sigh. So watched I when, man of the croziers, at the heel of a century fell, Weak, in the midst of the meadow, from his miles in the midst of the air, A starling like them that forgathered 'neath a moon waking white as a shell When the Fenians made foray at morning with Bran, Sceolan, Lomair. I awoke: the strange horse without summons out of the distance ran, Thrusting his nose to my shoulder; he knew in his bosom deep That once more moved in my bosom the ancient sad- ness of man, And that I would leave the Immortals, their dimness, their dews dropping sleep. O, had you seen beautiful Niamh grow white as the waters are white, Lord of the croziers, you even had lifted your hands and wept: But, the bird in my fingers, I mounted, remembering alone that delight Of twilight and slumber were gone, and that hoofs im- patiently stept. I died, "O Niamh! O white one! if only a twelve- houred day, I must gaze on the beard of Finn, and move where the old men and young In the Fenians' dwellings of wattle lean on the chess- boards and play, Ah, sweet to me now were even bald Conan's slanderous tongue! "Like me were some galley forsaken far off in Meridian isle, Remembering its long-oared companions, sails turning to threadbare rags; No more to crawl on the seas with long oars mile after mile, But to be amid shooting of flies and flowering of rushes and flags.' Their motionless eyeballs of spirits grown mild with mysterious thought, Watched her those seamless faces from the valley's glimmering girth; As she murmured, "O wandering Oisin, the strength of the bell-branch is naught, For there moves alive in your fingers the fluttering sad- ness of earth. "Then go through the lands in the saddle and see what the mortals do, And softly come to your Niamh over the tops of the tide; But weep for your Niamh, O Oisin, weep; for if only your shoe Brush lightly as haymouse earth's pebbles, you will come no more to my side. "O flaming lion of the world, O when will you turn to your rest?' I saw from a distant saddle; from the earth she made her moan: "I would die like a small withered leaf in the autumn, for breast unto breast We shall mingle no more, nor our gazes empty their sweetness lone "In the isles of the farthest seas where only the spirits come. Were the winds less soft than the breath of a pigeon who sleeps on her nest, Nor lost in the star-fires and odours the sound of the sea's vague drum? O flaming lion of the world, O when will you turn to your rest?' The wailing grew distant; I rode by the woods of the wrinkling bark, Where ever is murmurous dropping, old silence and that one sound; For no live creatures live there, no weasels move in the dark: In a reverie forgetful of all things, over the bubbling' ground. And I rode by the plains of the sea's edge, where all is barren and grey, Grey sand on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees, Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away', Like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas. And the winds made the sands on the sea's edge turning and turning go, As my mind made the names of the Fenians. Far from the hazel and oak, I rode away on the surges, where, high aS the saddle- bow, Fled foam underneath me, and round me, a wandering and milky smoke. Long fled the foam-flakes around me, the winds fled out of the vast, Snatching the bird in secret; nor knew I, embosomed apart, When they froze the cloth on my body like armour riveted fast, For Remembrance, lifting her leanness, keened in the gates of my heart. Till, fattening the winds of the morning, an odour of new-mown hay Came, and my forehead fell low, and my tears like berries fell down; Later a sound came, half lost in the sound of a shore far away, From the great grass-barnacle calling, and later the shore-weeds brown. If I were as I once was, the strong hoofs crushing the sand and the shells, Coming out of the sea as the dawn comes, a chaunt of love on my lips, Not coughing, my head on my knees, and praying, and wroth with the bells, I would leave no saint's head on his body from Rachlin to Bera of ships. Making way from the kindling surges, I rode on a bridle-path Much wondering to see upon all hands, of wattles and woodwork made, Your bell-mounted churches, and guardless the sacred cairn and the mth, And a small and a feeble populace stooping with mat- tock and spade, Or weeding or ploughing with faces a-shining with much-toil wet; While in this place and that place, with bodies un, glorious, their chieftains stood, Awaiting in patience the straw-death, croziered one, caught in your net: Went the laughter of scorn from my mouth like the roaring of wind in a wood. And before I went by them so huge and so speedy with eyes so bright, Came after the hard gaze of youth, or an old man lifted his head: And I rode and I rode, and I cried out, "The Fenians hunt wolves in the night, So sleep thee by daytime.' A voice cried, "The Fenians a long time are dead.' A whitebeard stood hushed on the pathway, the flesh of his face as dried grass, And in folds round his eyes and his mouth, he sad as a child without milk- And the dreams of the islands were gone, and I knew how men sorrow and pass, And their hound, and their horse, and their love, and their eyes that glimmer like silk. And wrapping my face in my hair, I murmured, "In old age they ceased'; And my tears were larger than berries, and I mur- mured, "Where white clouds lie spread On Crevroe or broad Knockfefin, with many of old they feast On the floors of the gods.' He cried, "No, the gods a long time are dead.' And lonely and longing for Niamh, I shivered and turned me about, The heart in me longing to leap like a grasshopper into her heart; I turned and rode to the westward, and followed the sea's old shout Till I saw where Maeve lies sleeping till starlight and midnight part. And there at the foot of the mountain, two carried a sack full of sand, They bore it with staggering and sweating, but fell with their burden at length. Leaning down from the gem-studded saddle, I flung it five yards with my hand, With a sob for men waxing so weakly, a sob for the Fenians' old strength. The rest you have heard of, O croziered man; how, when divided the girth, I fell on the path, and the horse went away like a sum- mer fly; And my years three hundred fell on me, and I rose, and walked on the earth, A creeping old man, full of sleep, with the spittle on his beard never dry'. How the men of the sand-sack showed me a church with its belfry in air; Sorry place, where for swing of the war-axe in my dim eyes the crozier gleams; What place have Caoilte and Conan, and Bran, Sceolan, Lomair? Speak, you too are old with your memories, an old man surrounded with dreams. i(S. Patrick.) Where the flesh of the footsole clingeth on the burning stones is their place; Where the demons whip them with wires on the burning stones of wide Hell, Watching the blessed ones move far off, and the smile on God's face, Between them a gateway of brass, and the howl of the angels who fell. i(Oisin.) Put the staff in my hands; for I go to the Fenians, O cleric, to chaunt The war-songs that roused them of old; they will rise, making clouds with their Breath, Innumerable, singing, exultant; the clay underneath them shall pant, And demons be broken in pieces, and trampled beneath them in death. And demons afraid in their darkness; deep horror of eyes and of wings, Afraid, their ears on the earth laid, shall listen and rise up and weep; Hearing the shaking of shields and the quiver of stretched bowstrings, Hearing Hell loud with a murmur, as shouting and mocking we sweep. We will tear out the flaming stones, and batter the gateway of brass And enter, and none sayeth "No' when there enters the strongly armed guest; Make clean as a broom cleans, and march on as oxen move over young grass; Then feast, making converse of wars, and of old wounds, and turn to our rest. i(S. Patrick.) On the flaming stones, without refuge, the limbs of the Fenians are tost; None war on the masters of Hell, who could break up the world in their rage; But kneel and wear out the flags and pray for your soul that is lost Through the demon love of its youth and its godless and passionate age. i(Oisin.) Ah me! to be Shaken with coughing and broken with old age and pain, Without laughter, a show unto children, alone with remembrance and fear; All emptied of purple hours as a beggar's cloak in the rain, As a hay-cock out on the flood, or a wolf sucked under a weir. It were sad to gaze on the blessed and no man I loved of old there; I throw down the chain of small stones! when life in my body has ceased, I will go to Caoilte, and Conan, and Bran, Sceolan, Lomair, And dwell in the house of the Fenians, be they in flames or at feast.

St. Deseret

Edgar Lee Masters

You wonder at my bright round eyes, my lips Pressed tightly like a venomous rosette. Thus do me honor by so much, fond wretch, And praise my Persian beauty, dulcet voice. But oh you know me, read me, passion blinds Your vision not at all, and you have passion For me and what I am. How can you be so? Hold me so bear-like, take my lips with yours, Bury your face in these my russet tresses, And yet not lose your vision? So I love you, And fear you too. How idle to deny it To you who know I fear you. Here am I Who answer you what e'er you choose to ask. You stride about my rooms and open books, And say when did he give you this? You pick His photograph from mantels, dressers, drawl Out of ironic strength, and smile the while: "You did not love this man." You probe my soul About his courtship, how I ran away, How he pursued with gifts from city to city, Threw bouquets to me from the pit, or stood Like Cleopatra's Giant negro guard, Watchful and waiting at the green-room door. So, devil, that you are, with needle pricks, One little question at a time, you've inked The story in my flesh. And now at last You smile and say I killed him. Well, it's true. But what a death he had! Envy him that. Your frigid soul can never win the death I gave him. Listen since you know already All but the subtlest matters. How you laugh! You know these too? Well, only I can tell them. First 'twas a piteous thing to see a man So love a woman, see a living thing So love another. Why he could not touch My hand but that his heart went up ten beats. His eyes would grow as bright as flames, his breath Come short when speaking. When he felt my breast Crush soft around him he would reel and walk Away from me, while I stood like a snake Poised for the strike, as quiet and possessed As a dead breeze. And you can have me wholly, And pet and pat me like a favored child, And let me go my way, while you turn back To what you left for me. Not so with him: I was all through his blood, had made his flesh My flesh, his nerves, brain, soul all mine at last, Dreams, thoughts, emotions, hungers all my own. So that he lived two lives, his own and mine, With one poor body, which he gave to me. Save that he could not give what I pushed back Into his hands to use for me and live My pities, hatreds, loves and passions with. I loved all this and thrived upon it, still I did not love him. Then why marry him? Why don't you see? It meant so much to him. And 'twas a little thing for me to do. His loneliness, his hunger, his great passion That showed in his poor eyes, his broken breath, His chivalry, his gifts, his poignant letters, His failing health, why even woman's cruelty Cannot deny such passion. Woman's cruelty Takes other means for finding its expression. And mine found its expression - you have guessed And so I tell you all. We were married then. He made a sacrament of our nuptials, Knelt with closed eyes beside the bed, my lips Pressed to his brow and throat. Unveiled my breast And looked, then closed his eyes. He did not take me As man takes his possession, nature's way, In triumph of life, in lightning, no, he came A suppliant, a worshipper, and whispered: "What angel child may lie upon the breast Of this it's angel mother." Well, you see The tears came in my eyes, for pity of him, Who made so much of what I had to give, And could give easily whether 'twas my rapture To give or to withhold. And in that moment Contempt of which I had been scarcely conscious Lying diffused like dew around my heart Drained down itself into my heart's dark cup To one bright drop of vital power, where He could not see it, scarcely knew that something Gradually drugged the potion that he drank In life with me. So we were wed a year, And he was with me hourly, till at last I could not breathe for him, while he could breathe No where but where I was. Then the bazaar Was coming on where I was to dance, and he Had long postponed a trip to England where Great interests waited for him, and with kisses I pushed him to his duty, and he went Shame stricken for a duty long postponed, Unable to retort against my words When I said "You must go;" for well he knew He should have gone before. And as for going I pleaded the bazaar and hate of travel, And got him off, and freed myself to breathe. His life had been too fast, his years too many To stand the strain that came. There was the worry About the business, and the labor over it. There was the war, and all the fear and turmoil In London for the war. But most of all There was the separation. And his letters! You've read them, wretch. Such letters never were Of aching loneliness and pining love And hope that lives across three thousand miles, And waits the day to travel them, and fear Of something which may bar the way forever: A storm, a wreck, a submarine and no day Without a letter or a cablegram. And look at the endearments - oh you fiend To pick their words to pieces like a botanist Who cuts a flower up for his microscope. And oh myself who let you see these letters. Why did I do it? Rather why is it You master me, even as I mastered him? At last he finished, got his passage back. He had been gone three months. And all these letters Showed how he starved for me, and scarce could wait To take me in his arms again, would choke With fast and heavy feeding. Well, you see The contempt I spoke of which lay long diffused Like dew around my heart, and which at once Drained down itself into my heart's dark cup Grew brighter, bitterer, for this obvious hunger, This thirst which could not wait, the piteous trembling. And all the while it seemed he thought his love Grew sacreder as it grew uncontrolled, And marked by trembling, choking, tears and sighs. This is not love which should be, has no use In this or any world. And as for me I could not stand it longer. And I thought Of what was best to do: if 'twas not best To kill him as the queen bee kills the mate In rapture's own excess. Then he arrived. I went to meet him in the car, pretended The feed pipe broke while I was on the way. I was not at the station when he came. I got back to the house and found him gone. He had run through the rooms calling my name, So Mary told me. Then he went around From place to place, wherever in the village He thought to find me. Soon I heard his steps, The key in the door, his winded breath, his call, His running, stumbling up the stairs, while I Stood silent as a shadow in our room, My round bright eyes grown brighter for the light His life was feeding them. And then he stood Breathless and trembling in the door-way, stood Transfixed with ecstacy, then rushed and caught me And broke into loud tears. It had to end. One or the other of us had to die. I could not die but by a violence, And he could die by love alone, and love I gave him to his death. Why tell you details And ways with which I maddened him, and whipped The energies of love? You have extracted The secret in the main, that 'twas from love He came to death. His life had been too fast, His years too many for the daily rapture I gave him after three months' separation. And so he died one morning, made me free Of nothing but his presence in the flesh. His love is on me yet, and its effect. And now you're here to slave me differently - No soul is ever free.

You Wrong Me, Kate.

Wilfred S. Skeats

You wrong me, Kate, you wrong me In harbouring the thought That he who loves so fondly Would injure thee in aught. The pang that I must feel, Kate, When dark suspicion lurks Within thy breast, is real, Kate, And mischievously works. The tone with doubt inflected, The calm, reproachful look, The name of one suspected In light arraignment spoke; These, these enforce the heart-ache, And instigate the strife, And these, in chiefest part, take The joy from out my life. For bright within my soul, dear, On Love's unsullied throne, With absolute control, dear, Thou reignest Queen alone. With reverence I chose thee, With pride I placed thee there; And none did e'er oppose thee, And none shall ever dare. All womankind shall merit A just regard from me, And all the sex inherit A claim to courtesy; But none has ever claimed me Her vassal, slave or thrall, For Kate, my heart has named thee The sceptred Queen of all. Then trust me, Kate, oh! trust me, In absence, far or near, And judge me not unjustly, But hold my promise dear. Will not my word content thee? I cannot give thee more: Oh Kate, my Kate, repent thee, And love me as before!

To His Book

Eugene Field

You vain, self-conscious little book, Companion of my happy days, How eagerly you seem to look For wider fields to spread your lays; My desk and locks cannot contain you, Nor blush of modesty restrain you. Well, then, begone, fool that thou art! But do not come to me and cry, When critics strike you to the heart: "Oh, wretched little book am I!" You know I tried to educate you To shun the fate that must await you. In youth you may encounter friends (Pray this prediction be not wrong), But wait until old age descends And thumbs have smeared your gentlest song; Then will the moths connive to eat you And rural libraries secrete you. However, should a friend some word Of my obscure career request, Tell him how deeply I was stirred To spread my wings beyond the nest; Take from my years, which are before you, To boom my merits, I implore you. Tell him that I am short and fat, Quick in my temper, soon appeased, With locks of gray,--but what of that? Loving the sun, with nature pleased. I'm more than four and forty, hark you,-- But ready for a night off, mark you!

The Ballad of Soulful Sam

Robert William Service

You want me to tell you a story, a yarn of the firin' line, Of our thin red kharki 'eroes, out there where the bullets whine; Out there where the bombs are bustin', and the cannons like 'ell-doors slam - Just order another drink, boys, and I'll tell you of Soulful Sam. Oh, Sam, he was never 'ilarious, though I've 'ad some mates as was wus; He 'adn't C. B. on his programme, he never was known to cuss. For a card or a skirt or a beer-mug he 'adn't a friendly word; But when it came down to Scriptures, say! Wasn't he just a bird! He always 'ad tracts in his pocket, the which he would haste to present, And though the fellers would use them in ways that they never was meant, I used to read 'em religious, and frequent I've been impressed By some of them bundles of 'oly dope he carried around in his vest. For I - and oh, 'ow I shudder at the 'orror the word conveys! 'Ave been - let me whisper it 'oarsely - a gambler 'alf of me days; A gambler, you 'ear - a gambler. It makes me wishful to weep, And yet 'ow it's true, my brethren! - I'd rather gamble than sleep. I've gambled the 'ole world over, from Monte Carlo to Maine; From Dawson City to Dover, from San Francisco to Spain. Cards! They 'ave been me ruin. They've taken me pride and me pelf, And when I'd no one to play with - why, I'd go and I'd play by meself. And Sam 'e would sit and watch me, as I shuffled a greasy deck, And 'e'd say: "You're bound to Perdition," And I'd answer: "Git off me neck!" And that's 'ow we came to get friendly, though built on a different plan, Me wot's a desprite gambler, 'im sich a good young man. But on to me tale. Just imagine . . . Darkness! The battle-front! The furious 'Uns attackin'! Us ones a-bearin' the brunt! Me crouchin' be'ind a sandbag, tryin' 'ard to keep calm, When I 'ears someone singin' a 'ymn toon; be'old! it is Soulful Sam. Yes; right in the crash of the combat, in the fury of flash and flame, 'E was shootin' and singin' serenely as if 'e enjoyed the same. And there in the 'eat of the battle, as the 'ordes of demons attacked, He dipped down into 'is tunic, and 'e 'anded me out a tract. Then a star-shell flared, and I read it: Oh, Flee From the Wrath to Come! Nice cheerful subject, I tell yer, when you're 'earin' the bullets 'um. And before I 'ad time to thank 'im, just one of them bits of lead Comes slingin' along in a 'urry, and it 'its my partner. . . . Dead? No, siree! not by a long sight! For it plugged 'im 'ard on the chest, Just where 'e'd tracts for a army corps stowed away in 'is vest. On its mission of death that bullet 'ustled along, and it caved A 'ole in them tracts to 'is 'ide, boys - but the life o' me pal was saved. And there as 'e showed me in triumph, and 'orror was chokin' me breath, On came another bullet on its 'orrible mission of death; On through the night it cavorted, seekin' its 'aven of rest, And it zipped through a crack in the sandbags, and it wolloped me bang on the breast. Was I killed, do you ask? Oh no, boys. Why am I sittin' 'ere Gazin' with mournful vision at a mug long empty of beer? With a throat as dry as a - oh, thanky! I don't much mind if I do. Beer with a dash of 'ollands, that's my particular brew. Yes, that was a terrible moment. It 'ammered me 'ard o'er the 'eart; It bowled me down like a nine-pin, and I looked for the gore to start; And I saw in the flash of a moment, in that thunder of hate and strife, Me wretched past like a pitchur - the sins of a gambler's life. For I 'ad no tracts to save me, to thwart that mad missile's doom; I 'ad no pious pamphlets to 'elp me to cheat the tomb; I 'ad no 'oly leaflets to baffle a bullet's aim; I'd only - a deck of cards, boys, but . . . IT SEEMED TO DO JUST THE SAME.

Summer Song Of The Swallow.

Marietta Holley

You will journey many a weary day and long, Ere you will see so restful and sweet a place, As this, my home, my nest so downy and warm, The labor of many happy and hopeful days; But its low brown walls are laid and softly lined, And oh, full happily now my rest I take, And care not I when it lightly rocks in the wind, For the branch above though it bends will never break; And close by my side rings out the voice of my mate - my lover; Oh, the days are long, and the days are bright - and Summer will last forever. Now the stream that divides us from perfect bliss Seems floating past so narrow - so narrow, You could span its wave such a morn as this, With a moment winged like a golden arrow, And the sweet wind waves all the tasselled broom, And over the hill does it loitering come, Oh, the perfect light - oh, the perfect bloom, And the silence is thrilled with the murmurous hum Of the bees a-kissing the red-lipped clover; Oh, the days are long, and the days are bright - and Summer will last forever. When the West is a golden glow, and lower The sun is sinking large and round, Like a golden goblet spilling o'er, Glittering drops that drip to the ground - Then I spread my lustrous wings and cleave the air Sailing high with a motion calm and slow, Far down the green earth lies like a picture fair, Then with rapid wing I sink in the shining glow; A-chasing the glinting, gleaming drops; oh, a diver Am I in a clear and golden sea, and Summer will last forever. The leaves with a pleasant rustling sound are stirred Of a night, and the stars are calm and bright; And I know, although I am only a little bird, One large serious star is watching me all the night, For when the dewy leaves are waved by the breeze, I see it forever smiling down on me. So I cover my head with my wing, and sleep in peace, As blessed as ever a little bird can be; And the silver moonlight falls over land and sea and river, And the nights are cool, and the nights are still, and Summer will last forever. I think you would journey many and many a day, Ere you so contented and blest a bird would see; Not all the wealth of the world could lure my love away, For my brown little nest is all the world to me; And care not I if brighter bowers there are Lying close to the sun - where tall palms pierce the sky; Oh, you would journey a weary way and a far, Ere you would behold a bird so blest as I; And singing close to my side is my mate - my kin - my lover; Oh, the days are long, and the days are bright - and Summer will last forever.

Song.

Thomas Runciman

You who know what easeful arms Silence winds about the dead, Or what far-swept music charms Hearts that were earth-wearied; You who know - if aught be known In that everlasting Hush Where the life-born years are strewn, Where the eyeless ages rush, - Tell me, is it conscious rest Heals the whilom hurt of life? Or is Nirvana undistressed E'en by memory of strife?

To Carrey Clavel

Thomas Hardy

You turn your back, you turn your back, And never your face to me, Alone you take your homeward track, And scorn my company. What will you do when Charley's seen Dewbeating down this way? - You'll turn your back as now, you mean? Nay, Carrey Clavel, nay! You'll see none's looking; put your lip Up like a tulip, so; And he will coll you, bend, and sip: Yes, Carrey, yes; I know!

You Will Forget Me.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

You will forget me. The years are so tender, They bind up the wounds which we think are so deep; This dream of our youth will fade out as the splendor Fades from the skies when the sun sinks to sleep; The cloud of forgetfulness, over and over Will banish the last rosy colors away, And the fingers of time will weave garlands to cover The scar which you think is a life-mark to-day. You will forget me. The one boon you covet Now above all things will soon seem no prize; And the heart, which you hold not in keeping to prove it True or untrue, will lose worth in your eyes. The one drop to-day, that you deem only wanting To fill your life-cup to the brim, soon will seem But a valueless mite; and the ghost that is haunting The aisles of your heart will pass out with the dream. You will forget me; will thank me for saying The words which you think are so pointed with pain. Time loves a new lay; and the dirge he is playing Will change for you soon to a livelier strain. I shall pass from your life - I shall pass out forever, And these hours we have spent will be sunk in the past. Youth buries its dead; grief kills seldom or never, And forgetfulness covers all sorrows at last.

Slaughterhouse

Paul Cameron Brown

You're the aggressor and your passion exceeds mine but we're in this slaughterhouse together and it's near closing. Vats of prickly ointment destined to repattern animal skin and tubs of steaming formaldehyde rest casually with the more antiseptic thrill of green sawdust. Blood is a chameleon, here, changing colours en route to sausage and Pram but my hotdogs and donuts are holding better to the cuttlefish in this unnatural forest. The stars are a jangle of planets in a world where wood became noise; each ceiling beam, incidentally, is the wrenched out spine of a Longhorn steer, doorknobs pig knuckles bound for Octoberfest fear. Even the kindly attendant is an ogre spying out porkers' throats; will sit under a bridge then capsize crates of young chickens knife ready at hand. The squeal of this bovine camp is recycled on 40 watt amps through more than decibels of rage; is a fishly contest designed to trade off gruel for fresher prospects. One armed forklift drivers, for instance, with realistic Captain Hook hands jab instructions to lifeless walls where underlings the colour of grey slate form a human paste. Sound is the monetary exchange, rabbit dung the troll's own currency - each scrawl of the pen confirmed by the work order upends living things bent over in pain.

First Love.

Victor-Marie Hugo

("Vous 'tes singulier.") [MARION DELORME, Act I., June, 1829, played 1831.] MARION (smiling.) You're strange, and yet I love you thus. DIDIER.    You love me? Beware, nor with light lips utter that word. You love me! - know you what it is to love With love that is the life-blood in one's veins, The vital air we breathe, a love long-smothered, Smouldering in silence, kindling, burning, blazing, And purifying in its growth the soul. A love that from the heart eats every passion But its sole self; love without hope or limit, Deep love that will outlast all happiness; Speak, speak; is such the love you bear me? MARION.    Truly. DIDIER. Ha! but you do not know how I love you! The day that first I saw you, the dark world Grew shining, for your eyes lighted my gloom. Since then, all things have changed; to me you are Some brightest, unknown creature from the skies. This irksome life, 'gainst which my heart rebelled, Seems almost fair and pleasant; for, alas! Till I knew you wandering, alone, oppressed, I wept and struggled, I had never loved. FANNY KEMBLE-BUTLER.

The Fair Rosamond

Marriott Edgar

You've heard of King Henry II And the story of how he got fond Of one of his customer's daughters, A lass called the "Fair Rosamond." 'Twere a lovely romance while it lasted, The course of true love ran serene, Till some nosey-parkering varlet Started carrying tales to the Queen. The Queen were at first incred-u-lous. She said "What a tale to invent!" The King would not stoop to such baseness At any rate, not during Lent." But one morning she picked up a doublet As he'd dropped on his bedroom settee; It had three golden hairs on the shoulder And a strong smell of 'Soir de Paree." She went to the King in a passion And showed him this evidence clear, And swore by her distaff and wimple That she weren't having none of that theer. She said "If I catch that young woman, She'll leave no more hairs on your coat, Her trying to pinch other folks' monarchs, I'll give her a swim in the moat. So he took Rosie off to the country, To an old-fashioned manor of his, With an "'ampton Court Maze "in the garden As he kept for occasions like this. But the Queen wasn't fooled for a moment, She knew all about Henry's ways; She slipped off herself the next morning And secretly watched that there maze. She were hiding in t 'macaracapa When Rosie came out for the milk, And she fixed to her dress as she passed her The end of a bobbin of silk. Poor Rosie went back not suspecting The trail she were leaving behind, And the Queen slowly followed her gloating At what she expected to find. The King he were toasting a muffin, And Rosie were wetting the tea, When in walked the Queen her face shining With a look of malevolent glee. She'd a basin of poison in one hand, In the other, a glittering knife The King kind of goggled a moment, Then turned and said "Rose... meet the wife!" The Queen shoved the basin at Rosie, And held the knife out by its point It were plain she had no' but two choices, The soup or a cut off the joint. The Fair Rosamond begged for mercy. She said, "What you've heard is not true, Our friendship were purely platonic." A yarn which in them days was new. The King told the same tale as Rosie And if that's not the truth, Queen," he cried, May I die on this spot where I'm standing! As he said it he skipped to one side. The Queen at the finish believed them, But to save further messing around, She packed Rosie off to a Convent And had the maze burnt to the ground.

In Memory of My Brother

Abram Joseph Ryan

Young as the youngest who donned the Gray, True as the truest that wore it, Brave as the bravest he marched away, (Hot tears on the cheeks of his mother lay) Triumphant waved our flag one day -- He fell in the front before it. Firm as the firmest, where duty led, He hurried without a falter; Bold as the boldest he fought and bled, And the day was won -- but the field was red -- And the blood of his fresh young heart was shed On his country's hallowed altar. On the trampled breast of the battle plain Where the foremost ranks had wrestled, On his pale, pure face not a mark of pain, (His mother dreams they will meet again) The fairest form amid all the slain, Like a child asleep he nestled. In the solemn shades of the wood that swept The field where his comrades found him, They buried him there -- and the big tears crept Into strong men's eyes that had seldom wept. (His mother -- God pity her -- smiled and slept, Dreaming her arms were around him.) A grave in the woods with the grass o'ergrown, A grave in the heart of his mother -- His clay in the one lies lifeless and lone; There is not a name, there is not a stone, And only the voice of the winds maketh moan O'er the grave where never a flower is strewn But -- his memory lives in the other.

The Return Of Albert

Marriott Edgar

You've 'eard 'ow young Albert Ramsbottom, In the Zoo up at Blackpool one year, With a stick and 'orse's 'ead 'andle, Gave a lion a poke in the ear. The name of the lion was Wallace, The poke in the ear made 'im wild; And before you could say 'Bob's your Uncle,' 'E'd up and 'e'd swallered the child. 'E were sorry the moment 'e'd done it, With children 'e'd always been chums, And besides, 'e'd no teeth in 'is noodle, And 'e couldn't chew Albert on t'gums. 'E could feel the lad moving inside 'im, As 'e lay on 'is bed of dried ferns, And it might 'ave been little lad's birthday, 'E wished 'im such 'appy returns. But Albert kept kicking and fighting, Till Wallace arose feeling bad, And felt it were time that 'e started to stage A come-back for the lad. So with 'is 'ead down in a corner, On 'is front paws 'e started to walk, And 'e coughed and 'e sneezed and 'e gargled, Till Albert shot out like a cork. Old Wallace felt better direc'ly, And 'is figure once more became lean, But the only difference with Albert Was 'is face and 'is 'ands were quite clean. Meanwhile Mister and Missus Ramsbottom 'Ad gone 'ome to tea feeling blue; Ma says 'I feel down in the mouth like,' Pa says "Aye! I bet Albert does too.' Said Ma 'It just goes for to show yer That the future is never revealed, If I thought we was going to lose 'im I'd 'ave not 'ad 'is boots soled and 'eeled. 'Let's look on the bright side,' said Father 'What can't be 'elped must be endured, Every cloud 'as a silvery lining, And we did 'ave young Albert insured.' A knock at the door came that moment, As Father these kind words did speak, 'Twas the man from t'Prudential, E'd called for their 'tuppence per person per week.' When Father saw who 'ad been knocking, 'E laughed and 'e kept laughing so, That the young man said 'What's there to laugh at?' Pa said 'You'll laugh an' all when you know.' 'Excuse 'im for laughing,' said Mother, 'But really things 'appen so strange, Our Albert's been ate by a lion, You've got to pay us for a change.' Said the young feller from the Prudential, 'Now, come come, let's understand this, You don't mean to say that you've lost 'im?' Ma says 'Oh, no! we know where 'e is.' When the young man 'ad 'eard all the details, A bag from 'is pocket he drew, And he paid them with interest and bonus, The sum of nine pounds four and two. Pa 'ad scarce got 'is 'and on the money, When a face at the window they see, And Mother says 'Eeh! look, it's Albert,' And Father says 'Aye, it would be.' Young Albert came in all excited, and started 'is story to give, And Pa says 'I'll never trust lions again, Not as long as I live.' The young feller from the Prudential To pick up his money began, And Father says 'Eeh! just a moment, Don't be in a hurry, young man.' Then giving young Albert a shilling, He said 'Pop off back to the Zoo. 'Ere's your stick with the 'orse's 'ead 'andle, Go and see what the Tigers can do!'

Young Jockey.

Robert Burns

Tune - "Young Jockey." I. Young Jockey was the blythest lad In a' our town or here awa: Fu' blythe he whistled at the gaud, Fu' lightly danced he in the ha'. He roosed my een, sae bonnie blue, He roos'd my waist sae genty sma', And ay my heart came to my mou' When ne'er a body heard or saw. II. My Jockey toils upon the plain, Thro' wind and weet, thro' frost and snaw; And o'er the lea I leuk fu' fain, When Jockey's owsen hameward ca'. An' ay the night comes round again, When in his arms he takes me a', An' ay he vows he'll be my ain, As lang's he has a breath to draw.

Impromptu.

Robert Burns

You're welcome, Willie Stewart, You're welcome, Willie Stewart; There's ne'er a flower that blooms in May, That's half sae welcome's thou art. Come bumpers high, express your joy, The bowl we maun renew it; The tappit-hen, gae bring her ben, To welcome Willie Stewart. My foes be strang, and friends be slack, Ilk action may he rue it, May woman on him turn her back, That wrongs thee, Willie Stewart.

To A Young Lady, Who Was Fond Of Fortune-Telling

Matthew Prior

You, Madam, may, with safety go Decrees of destiny to know; For at your birth kind planets reign'd, And certain happiness ordain'd: Such charms as yours are only given To chosen favourites of Heaven. But such is my uncertain state 'Tis dangerous to try my fate; For I would only know from art The future motions of your hert, And what predestinated doom Attends my love for years to come, No secrets else that mortals learn My cares deserve, or life concern; But this will so important be I dread to search the dark decree; For while the smallest hope remains Faint joys are mingled with my pains. Vain distant views my fancy please, And give some intermitting ease; But should the stars too plainly show That you have doom'd my endless wo, No human force or art could bear The torment of my wild despair. This secret then I dare not know, And other truths are useless now. What matters if, unbless'd in love, How long or short my life will prove? To gratify what low desire Should I with needless haste inquire, How great how wealthy I shall be? Oh, what is wealth or power to me! If I am happy or undone, It must proceed from you alone.

To General Dumourier. Parody On Robin Adair.

Robert Burns

I. You're welcome to despots, Dumourier; You're welcome to despots, Dumourier; How does Dampiere do? Aye, and Bournonville, too? Why did they not come along with you, Dumourier? II. I will fight France with you, Dumourier; I will fight France with you, Dumourier; I will fight France with you, I will take my chance with you; By my soul I'll dance a dance with you, Dumourier. III. Then let us fight about, Dumourier; Then let us fight about, Dumourier; Then let us fight about, Till freedom's spark is out, Then we'll be damn'd, no doubt, Dumourier.

Algernon

Hilaire Belloc

Who played with a Loaded Gun, and, on missing his Sister was reprimanded by his Father. Young Algernon, the Doctor's Son, Was playing with a Loaded Gun. He pointed it towards his Sister, Aimed very carefully, but Missed her! His Father, who was standing near, The Loud Explosion chanced to Hear, And reprimanded Algernon For playing with a Loaded Gun.

The Wanton Chloe--A Pastoral

John Clare

Young Chloe looks sweet as the rose, And her love might be reckoned no less, But her bosom so freely bestows That all may a portion possess. Her smiles would be cheering to see, But so freely they're lavished abroad That each silly swain, like to me, Can boast what the wanton bestowed. Her looks and her kisses so free Are for all, like the rain and the sky; As the blossom love is to the bee, Each swain is as welcome as I. And though I my folly can see, Yet still must I love and adore, Though I know the love whispered to me Has been told to so many before. 'T is sad that a bosom so fair, And soft lips so seemingly sweet, Should study false ways, to ensnare, And breathe in their kisses deceit. But beauty's no guide to the best: The rose, that out-blushes the morn, While it tempts the glad eye to its breast, Will pierce the fond hand with a thorn. Yet still must I love, silly swain! And put up with all her deceit, And try to be jealous, in vain, For I cannot help thinking her sweet. I see other swains in her bower, And I sigh, and excuse what I see, While I say to myself, "Is the flower Any worse when it's kissed by the bee?"

Arms And The Man

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

Young Croesus went to pay his call On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall: And, though his wound was healed and mended, He hoped he'd get his leave extended. The waiting-room was dark and bare. He eyed a neat-framed notice there Above the fireplace hung to show Disabled heroes where to go For arms and legs; with scale of price, And words of dignified advice How officers could get them free. Elbow or shoulder, hip or knee, - Two arms, two legs, though all were lost, They'd be restored him free of cost. Then a Girl-Guide looked in to say, "Will Captain Croesus come this way?"

Faithless Sally Brown.[1] - An Old Ballad.

Thomas Hood

Young Ben he was a nice young man, A carpenter by trade; And he fell in love with Sally Brown, That was a lady's maid. But as they fetch'd a walk one day, They met a press-gang crew; And Sally she did faint away, Whilst Ben he was brought to. The Boatswain swore with wicked words, Enough to shock a saint. That though she did seem in a fit, 'Twas nothing but a feint. "Come, girl," said he, "hold up your head, He'll be as good as me; For when your swain is in our boat, A boatswain he will be." So when they'd made their game of her, And taken off her elf, She roused, and found she only was A coming to herself. "And is he gone, and is he gone?" She cried, and wept outright: "Then I will to the water-side, And see him out of sight." A waterman came up to her, - "Now, young woman," said he, "If you weep on so, you will make Eye-water in the sea." "Alas! they've taken my beau, Ben, To sail with old Benbow"; And her woe began to run afresh, As if she'd said Gee woe! Says he, "They've only taken him To the Tender-ship, you see"; - "The Tender-ship," cried Sally Brown, What a hard-ship that must be! "O! would I were a mermaid now, For then I'd follow him; But, oh! I'm not a fish-woman, And so I cannot swim. "Alas! I was not born beneath 'The virgin and the scales,' So I must curse my cruel stars, And walk about in Wales," Now Ben had sail'd to many a place That's underneath the world; But in two years the ship came home, And all the sails were furl'd. But when he call'd on Sally Brown, To see how she went on, He found she'd got another Ben, Whose Christian name was John. "O Sally Brown, O Sally Brown, How could you serve me so, I've met with many a breeze before, But never such a blow!" Then reading on his 'bacco box, He heaved a heavy sigh, And then began to eye his pipe, And then to pipe his eye. And then he tried to sing "All's Well," But could not, though he tried; His head was turn'd, and so he chew'd His pigtail till he died. His death, which happen'd in his berth, At forty-odd befell: They went and told the sexton, and The sexton toll'd the bell.

Young Again.

Charles Sangster

Young again!    Young again! Beating heart!    I deemed that sorrow, With its torture-rack of pain, Had eclipsed each bright to-morrow; And that Love could never rise Into life's cerulean skies, Singing the divine refrain - "Young again!    Young again!" Young again!    Young again! Passion dies as we grow older; Love that in repose has lain, Takes a higher flight, and bolder: Fresh from rest and dewy sleep, Like the skylark's matin sweep, Singing the divine refrain - "Young again!    Young again!" Young again!    Young again! Book of Youth, thy sunny pages Here and there a tear may stain, But 'tis Love that makes us sages. Love, Hope, Youth - blest trinity! Wanting these, and what were we? Who would chant the sweet refrain - "Young again!    Young again!"

At The Stile.

Madison Julius Cawein

Young Harry leapt over the stile and kissed her, Over the stile the stars a-winking; He thought it was Mary, 't was Mary's sister And love hath a way of thinking. "Thy pail, sweetheart, I will take and carry." Over the stile the stars hang yellow. "Just to the spring, my sweetheart Harry." And love is a heartless fellow. "Thou saidst me yea when the frost did shower Over the stile from stars a-shiver." "I say thee nay now the cherry-trees flower, And love is taker and giver." "O false! thou art false to me, sweetheart!" Over the stile the stars a-glister. "To thee, the stars, and myself, sweetheart, I never was aught save Mary's sister. "Sweet Mary's sister and thou my Harry, Her Harry and mine, but mine the weeping: In a month or twain you two will marry And I in my grave be sleeping." Alone among the meadows of millet, Over the stile the stars pursuing, Some tears in her pail as she stoops to fill it And love hath a way of doing.

The Excursion

Alfred Lichtenstein

(Dedicated to Kurt Lubasch, July 15, 1912) You, I can endure these stolid Rooms and barren streets And the red sun on the houses, And the books read A million times ago. Come, we must go far Away from the city. Let us lie down In this gentle meadow. Let us raise, threatening yet helpless Against the mindless, large, Deadly blue, shiny skies, The fleshless, dull eyes, The cursed hands, Swollen from crying.

Inevitable Change

John Frederick Freeman

Young as the Spring seemed life when she Came from her silent East to me; Unquiet as Autumn was my breast When she declined into her West. Such tender, such untroubling things She taught me, daughter of all Springs; Such dusty deathly lore I learned When her last embers redly burned. How should it hap (Love, canst thou say?) Such end should be to so pure day? Such shining chastity give place To this annulling grave's disgrace? Such hopes be quenched in this despair, Grace chilled to granite everywhere? How should--in vain I cry--how should That be, alas, which only could!

Sailor And Shade

Eugene Field

SAILOR You, who have compassed land and sea, Now all unburied lie; All vain your store of human lore, For you were doomed to die. The sire of Pelops likewise fell,-- Jove's honored mortal guest; So king and sage of every age At last lie down to rest. Plutonian shades enfold the ghost Of that majestic one Who taught as truth that he, forsooth, Had once been Pentheus' son; Believe who may, he's passed away, And what he did is done. A last night comes alike to all; One path we all must tread, Through sore disease or stormy seas Or fields with corpses red. Whate'er our deeds, that pathway leads To regions of the dead. SHADE The fickle twin Illyrian gales Overwhelmed me on the wave; But you that live, I pray you give My bleaching bones a grave! Oh, then when cruel tempests rage You all unharmed shall be; Jove's mighty hand shall guard by land And Neptune's on the sea. Perchance you fear to do what may Bring evil to your race? Oh, rather fear that like me here You'll lack a burial place. So, though you be in proper haste, Bide long enough, I pray, To give me, friend, what boon shall send My soul upon its way!

The Sea

D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

You, you are all unloving, loveless, you; Restless and lonely, shaken by your own moods, You are celibate and single, scorning a comrade even, Threshing your own passions with no woman for the threshing-floor, Finishing your dreams for your own sake only, Playing your great game around the world, alone, Without playmate, or helpmate, having no one to cherish, No one to comfort, and refusing any comforter. Not like the earth, the spouse all full of increase Moiled over with the rearing of her many-mouthed young; You are single, you are fruitless, phosphorescent, cold and callous, Naked of worship, of love or of adornment, Scorning the panacea even of labour, Sworn to a high and splendid purposelessness Of brooding and delighting in the secret of life's goings, Sea, only you are free, sophisticated. You who toil not, you who spin not, Surely but for you and your like, toiling Were not worth while, nor spinning worth the effort! You who take the moon as in a sieve, and sift Her flake by flake and spread her meaning out; You who roll the stars like jewels in your palm, So that they seem to utter themselves aloud; You who steep from out the days their colour, Reveal the universal tint that dyes Their web; who shadow the sun's great gestures and expressions So that he seems a stranger in his passing; Who voice the dumb night fittingly; Sea, you shadow of all things, now mock us to death with your shadowing. BOURNEMOUTH

Under The Oak

D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

You, if you were sensible, When I tell you the stars flash signals, each one dreadful, You would not turn and answer me "The night is wonderful." Even you, if you knew How this darkness soaks me through and through, and infuses Unholy fear in my vapour, you would pause to distinguish What hurts, from what amuses. For I tell you Beneath this powerful tree, my whole soul's fluid Oozes away from me as a sacrifice steam At the knife of a Druid. Again I tell you, I bleed, I am bound with withies, My life runs out. I tell you my blood runs out on the floor of this oak, Gout upon gout. Above me springs the blood-born mistletoe In the shady smoke. But who are you, twittering to and fro Beneath the oak? What thing better are you, what worse? What have you to do with the mysteries Of this ancient place, of my ancient curse? What place have you in my histories?

Kentucky

Madison Julius Cawein

You, who are met to remember Kentucky and give her praise; Who have warmed your hearts at the ember Of her love for many days! Be faithful to your mother, However your ways may run, And, holding one to the other, Prove worthy to be her sons. Worthy of her who brought you; Worthy in dream and deed: Worthy her love that taught you, And holds your work in heed: Your work she weighs and watches, Giving it praise and blame, As to her heart she catches, Or sets aside in shame. One with her heart's devotion, One with her soul's firm will, She holds to the oldtime notion Of what is good, what ill: And still in unspoiled beauty, With all her pioneer pride, She keeps to the path of duty, And never turns aside. She dons no new attire Of modern modes and tricks, And stands for something higher Than merely politics: For much the world must think on, For dreams as well as deeds; For men, like Clay and Lincoln, And words the whole world reads. Not for her manners gracious, Nor works, nor courage of Convictions, proud, audacious, Does she compel our love, But for her heart's one passion, Old as democracy, That holds to the ancient fashion Of hospitality.

Young England - What Is Then Become Of Old

William Wordsworth

Young England, what is then become of Old Of dear Old England? Think they she is dead, Dead to the very name? Presumption fed On empty air! That name will keep its hold In the true filial bosom's inmost fold For ever. The Spirit of Alfred, at the head Of all who for her rights watched, toiled and bled, Knows that this prophecy is not too bold. What, how! shall she submit in will and deed To Beardless Boys, an imitative race, The 'servum pecus' of a Gallic breed? Dear Mother! if thou 'must' thy steps retrace, Go where at least meek Innocency dwells; Let Babes and Sucklings be thy oracles.

Verses Sent To The Dean On His Birth-Day, With Pine's Horace, Finely Bound. By Dr. J. Sican[1]

Jonathan Swift

(Horace speaking.) You've read, sir, in poetic strain, How Varus and the Mantuan swain Have on my birth-day been invited, (But I was forced in verse to write it,) Upon a plain repast to dine, And taste my old Campanian wine; But I, who all punctilios hate, Though long familiar with the great, Nor glory in my reputation, Am come without an invitation; And, though I'm used to right Falernian, I'll deign for once to taste I'rnian; But fearing that you might dispute (Had I put on my common suit) My breeding and my politesse, I visit in my birth-day dress: My coat of purest Turkey red, With gold embroidery richly spread; To which I've sure as good pretensions, As Irish lords who starve on pensions. What though proud ministers of state Did at your antichamber wait; What though your Oxfords and your St. Johns, Have at your levee paid attendance, And Peterborough and great Ormond, With many chiefs who now are dormant, Have laid aside the general's staff, And public cares, with you to laugh; Yet I some friends as good can name, Nor less the darling sons of fame; For sure my Pollio and M'cenas Were as good statesmen, Mr. Dean, as Either your Bolingbroke or Harley, Though they made Lewis beg a parley; And as for Mordaunt,[2] your loved hero, I'll match him with my Drusus Nero. You'll boast, perhaps, your favourite Pope; But Virgil is as good, I hope. I own indeed I can't get any To equal Helsham and Delany; Since Athens brought forth Socrates, A Grecian isle, Hippocrates; Since Tully lived before my time, And Galen bless'd another clime. You'll plead, perhaps, at my request, To be admitted as a guest, "Your hearing's bad!" - But why such fears? I speak to eyes, and not to ears; And for that reason wisely took The form you see me in, a book. Attack'd by slow devouring moths, By rage of barbarous Huns and Goths; By Bentley's notes, my deadliest foes, By Creech's[3] rhymes, and Dunster's[4] prose; I found my boasted wit and fire In their rude hands almost expire: Yet still they but in vain assail'd; For, had their violence prevail'd, And in a blast destroy'd my frame, They would have partly miss'd their aim; Since all my spirit in thy page Defies the Vandals of this age. 'Tis yours to save these small remains From future pedant's muddy brains, And fix my long uncertain fate, You best know how - "which way?" - TRANSLATE.

Albert's Return

Marriott Edgar

You've 'eard 'ow young Albert Ramsbottom At the zoo up at Blackpool one year With a stick with an 'orse's 'ead 'andle Gave a lion a poke in the ear? The name of the lion was Wallace, The poke in the ear made 'im wild And before you could say, "Bob's yer uncle!" E'd upped and 'e'd swallowed the child. 'E were sorry the moment 'e done it; With children 'e'd always been chums, And besides, 'e'd no teeth in his muzzle, And 'e couldn't chew Albert on't gums. 'E could feel the lad movin' inside 'im As 'e lay on 'is bed of dried ferns; And it might 'ave been little lad's birthday, 'E wished 'im such 'appy returns. But Albert kept kickin' and fightin'... And Wallace got up, feelin' bad. Decided 'twere time that 'e started To stage a comeback for the lad. Then puttin' 'ead down in one corner, On 'is front paws 'e started to walk; And 'e coughed, and 'e sneezed, and 'e gargled 'Till Albert shot out... like a cork! Now Wallace felt better directly And 'is figure once more became lean. But the only difference with Albert Was 'is face and 'is 'ands were quite clean. Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Ramsbottom 'Ad gone back to their tea, feelin' blue. Ma said, "I feel down in the mouth, like. " Pa said, "Aye, I bet Albert does, too." Said Mother, "It just goes to show yer That the future is never revealed; If I'd thowt we was goin' to lose 'im, I'd 'ave not 'ad 'is boots soled and 'eeled." "Let's look on the bright side," said Father, "Wot can't be 'elped must be endured; Each cloud 'as a silvery lining, And we did 'ave young Albert insured." A knock on the door came that moment As Father these kind words did speak. 'Twas the man from Prudential - 'e'd come for Their tuppence per person per week. When Father saw 'oo 'ad been knockin', 'E laughed, and 'e kept laughin' so, The man said, "'Ere, wot's there to laugh at?" Pa said, "You'll laugh an' all when you know!" "Excuse 'im for laughing," said Mother, "But really, things 'appen so strange Our Albert's been et by a lion; You've got to pay us for a change!" Said the young man from the Prudential, "Now, come, come, let's understand this... You don't mean to say that you've lost 'im?" Pa said, "Oh, no, we know where 'e is!" When the young man 'ad 'eard all the details, A purse from 'is pocket he drew And 'e paid them with interest and bonus The sum of nine pounds, four and two. Pa 'ad scarce got 'is 'and on the money When a face at the window they see And Mother cried, "Eee, look, it's Albert!" And Father said, "Aye, it would be." Albert came in all excited, And started 'is story to give; And Pa said, "I'll never trust lions Again, not as long as I live." The young man from the Prudential To pick up the money began But Father said, "'ere, wait a moment, Don't be in a 'urry, young man." Then giving young Albert a shilling, 'E said, "'Ere, pop off back to the zoo; Get your stick with the 'orse's 'ead 'andle... Go and see wot the tigers can do!"

The Two Rats, The Fox, And The Egg.

Jean de La Fontaine

Address to Madame de la Sabli're.[1] You, Iris, 'twere an easy task to praise; But you refuse the incense of my lays. In this you are unlike all other mortals, Who welcome all the praise that seeks their portals; Not one who is not soothed by sound so sweet. For me to blame this humour were not meet, By gods and mortals shared in common, And, in the main, by lovely woman. That drink, so vaunted by the rhyming trade, That cheers the god who deals the thunder-blow, And oft intoxicates the gods below, - The nectar, Iris, is of praises made. You taste it not. But, in its place, Wit, science, even trifles grace Your bill of fare; but, for that matter, The world will not believe the latter. Well, leave the world in unbelief. Still science, trifles, fancies light as air, I hold, should mingle in a bill of fare, Each giving each its due relief; As, where the gifts of Flora fall, On different flowers we see Alight the busy bee, Educing sweet from all. Thus much premised, don't think it strange, Or aught beyond my muse's range, If e'en my fables should infold, Among their nameless trumpery, The traits of a philosophy Far-famed as subtle, charming, bold. They call it new - the men of wit; Perhaps you have not heard of it?[2] My verse will tell you what it means: - They say that beasts are mere machines;[3] That, in their doings, everything Is done by virtue of a spring - No sense, no soul, nor notion; But matter merely, - set in motion, Just such the watch in kind, Which joggeth on, to purpose blind. Now ope, and read within its breast - The place of soul is by its wheels possess'd. One moves a second, that a third, Till finally its sound is heard. And now the beast, our sages say, Is moved precisely in this way An object strikes it in a certain place: The spot thus struck, without a moment's space, To neighbouring parts the news conveys; Thus sense receives it through the chain, And takes impression. - How? Explain. - Not I. They say, by sheer necessity, From will as well as passion free, The animal is found the thrall Of movements which the vulgar call Joy, sadness, pleasure, pain, and love - The cause extrinsic and above. - Believe it not. What's this I hold? Why, sooth, it is a watch of gold - Its life, the mere unbending of a spring. And we? - are quite a different thing. Hear how Descartes - Descartes, whom all applaud, Whom pagans would have made a god, Who holds, in fact, the middle place 'Twixt ours and the celestial race, About as does the plodding ass From man to oyster as you pass - Hear how this author states the case 'Of all the tribes to being brought By our Creator out of nought, I only have the gift of thought.' Now, Iris, you will recollect We were by older science taught That when brutes think, they don't reflect. Descartes proceeds beyond the wall, And says they do not think at all. This you believe with ease; And so could I, if I should please. Still, in the forest, when, from morn Till midday, sounds of dog and horn Have terrified the stag forlorn; When he has doubled forth and back, And labour'd to confound his track, Till tired and spent with efforts vain - An ancient stag, of antlers ten; - He puts a younger in his place, All fresh, to weary out the chase. - What thoughts for one that merely grazes! The doublings, turnings, windings, mazes, The substituting fresher bait, Were worthy of a man of state - And worthy of a better fate! To yield to rascal dogs his breath Is all the honour of his death. And when the partridge danger spies, Before her brood have strength to rise, She wisely counterfeits a wound, And drags her wing upon the ground - Thus, from her home, beside some ancient log, Safe drawing off the sportsman and his dog; And while the latter seems to seize her, The victim of an easy chase - 'Your teeth are not for such as me, sir,' She cries, And flies, And laughs the former in his face. Far north, 'tis said, the people live In customs nearly primitive; That is to say, are bound In ignorance profound: - I mean the people human; For animals are dwelling there With skill such buildings to prepare As could on earth but few men. Firm laid across the torrent's course, Their work withstands its mighty force, So damming it from shore to shore, That, gliding smoothly o'er, In even sheets the waters pour. Their work, as it proceeds, they grade and bevel, Or bring it up to plumb or level; First lay their logs, and then with mortar smear, As if directed by an engineer. Each labours for the public good; The old command, the youthful brood Cut down, and shape, and place the wood. Compared with theirs, e'en Plato's model state Were but the work of some apprentice pate. Such are the beaver folks, who know Enough to house themselves from snow, And bridge, though they can swim, the pools. Meanwhile, our kinsmen are such fools, In spite of their example, They dwell in huts less ample, And cross the streams by swimming, However cold and brimming! Now that the skilful beaver, Is but a body void of spirit, From whomsoever I might hear it, I would believe it never. But I go farther in the case. Pray listen while I tell A thing which lately fell From one of truly royal race.[4] A prince beloved by Victory, The North's defender here shall be My voucher and your guaranty; Whose mighty name alone Commands the sultan's throne, The king whom Poland calls her own. This king declares (kings cannot lie, we hear) That, on his own frontier, Some animals there are; Engaged in ceaseless war; From age to age the quarrel runs, Transmitted down from sires to sons; (These beasts, he says, are to the fox akin;) And with more skill no war hath been, By highest military powers, Conducted in this age of ours Guards, piquets, scouts, and spies, And ambuscade that hidden lies, The foe to capture by surprise, And many a shrewd appliance Of that pernicious, cursed science, The daughter of the Stygian wave, And mother harsh of heroes brave, Those military creatures have. To chant their feats a bard we lack, Till Death shall give us Homer back. And should he such a wonder do, And, while his hand was in, release Old Epicurus' rival[5] too, What would the latter say to facts like these? Why, as I've said, that nature does such things In animals by means of springs; That Memory is but corporeal; And that to do the things array'd So proudly in my story all, The animal but needs her aid. At each return, the object, so to speak, Proceeds directly to her store With keenest optics - there to seek The image it had traced before, Which found, proceeds forthwith to act Just as at first it did, in fact, By neither thought nor reason back'd. Not so with us, beasts perpendicular; With us kind Heaven is more particular. Self-ruled by independent mind, We're not the sport of objects blind, Nor e'en to instinct are consign'd. I walk; I talk; I feel the sway Of power within This nice machine, It cannot but obey. This power, although with matter link'd, Is comprehended as distinct. Indeed 'tis comprehended better In truth and essence than is matter. O'er all our arts it is supreme. But how doth matter understand Or hear its sovereign lord's command? Here doth a difficulty seem: I see the tool obey the hand; But then the hand who guideth it; Who guides the stars in order fit? Perhaps each mighty world, Since from its Maker hurl'd, Some angel may have kept in custody. However that may be, A spirit dwells in such as we; It moves our limbs; we feel its mandates now; We see and know it rules, but know not how: Nor shall we know, indeed, Till in the breast of God we read. And, speaking in all verity, Descartes is just as ignorant as we; In things beyond a mortal's ken, He knows no more than other men. But, Iris, I confess to this, That in the beasts of which I speak Such spirit it were vain to seek, For man its only temple is. Yet beasts must have a place Beneath our godlike race, Which no mere plant requires Although the plant respires. But what shall one reply To what I next shall certify? Two rats in foraging fell on an egg, - For gentry such as they A genteel dinner every way; They needed not to find an ox's leg. Brimful of joy and appetite, They were about to sack the box, So tight without the aid of locks, When suddenly there came in sight A personage - Sir Pullet Fox. Sure, luck was never more untoward Since Fortune was a vixen froward! How should they save their egg - and bacon? Their plunder couldn't then be bagg'd; Should it in forward paws be taken, Or roll'd along, or dragg'd? Each method seem'd impossible, And each was then of danger full. Necessity, ingenious mother, Brought forth what help'd them from their pother. As still there was a chance to save their prey, - The spunger yet some hundred yards away, - One seized the egg, and turn'd upon his back, And then, in spite of many a thump and thwack, That would have torn, perhaps, a coat of mail, The other dragg'd him by the tail. Who dares the inference to blink, That beasts possess wherewith to think? Were I commission'd to bestow This power on creatures here below, The beasts should have as much of mind As infants of the human kind. Think not the latter, from their birth? It hence appears there are on earth That have the simple power of thought Where reason hath no knowledge wrought. And on this wise an equal power I'd yield To all the various tenants of the field; Not reason such as in ourselves we find, But something more than any mainspring blind. A speck of matter I would subtilise Almost beyond the reach of mental eyes; - An atom's essence, one might say, An extract of a solar ray, More quick and pungent than a flame of fire, - For if of flame the wood is sire, Cannot the flame, itself refined, Give some idea of the mind? Comes not the purest gold From lead, as we are told? To feel and choose, my work should soar - Unthinking judgment - nothing more. No monkey of my manufacture Should argue from his sense or fact, sure: But my allotment to mankind Should be of very different mind. We men should share in double measure, Or rather have a twofold treasure; The one the soul, the same in all That bear the name of animal - The sages, dunces, great and small, That tenant this our teeming ball; - The other still another soul, Which should to mortals here belong In common with the angel throng; Which, made an independent whole, Could pierce the skies to worlds of light, Within a point have room to be, - Its life a morn, sans noon or night. Exempt from all destructive change - A thing as real as it is strange. In infancy this child of day Should glimmer but a feeble ray. Its earthly organs stronger grown, The beam of reason, brightly thrown, Should pierce the darkness, thick and gross, That holds the other prison'd close.

Love And The Sun-Dial.

Thomas Moore

Young Love found a Dial once in a dark shade Where man ne'er had wandered nor sunbeam played; "Why thus in darkness lie?" whispered young Love, "Thou, whose gay hours in sunshine should move." "I ne'er," said the Dial, "have seen the warm sun, "So noonday and midnight to me, Love, are one." Then Love took the Dial away from the shade, And placed her where Heaven's beam warmly played. There she reclined, beneath Love's gazing eye, While, marked all with sunshine, her hours flew by. "Oh, how," said the Dial, "can any fair maid "That's born to be shone upon rest in the shade?" But night now comes on and the sunbeam's o'er, And Love stops to gaze on the Dial no more. Alone and neglected, while bleak rain and winds Are storming around her, with sorrow she finds That Love had but numbered a few sunny hours,-- Then left the remainder to darkness and showers!

Sonnet. To An Enthusiast.

Thomas Hood

Young ardent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth, Spring warmth of heart, and fervency of mind, And still a large late love of all thy kind. Spite of the world's cold practice and Time's tooth, - For all these gifts, I know not, in fair sooth, Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind Thine eyes with tears, - that thou hast not resign'd The passionate fire and freshness of thy youth: For as the current of thy life shall flow, Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stain'd, Through flow'ry valley or unwholesome fen, Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy woe Thrice cursed of thy race, - thou art ordain'd To share beyond the lot of common men.

Dream-Love

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Young Love lies sleeping In May-time of the year, Among the lilies, Lapped in the tender light: White lambs come grazing, White doves come building there: And round about him The May-bushes are white. Soft moss the pillow For oh, a softer cheek; Broad leaves cast shadow Upon the heavy eyes: There winds and waters Grow lulled and scarcely speak; There twilight lingers The longest in the skies. Young Love lies dreaming; But who shall tell the dream? A perfect sunlight On rustling forest tips; Or perfect moonlight Upon a rippling stream; Or perfect silence, Or song of cherished lips. Burn odours round him To fill the drowsy air; Weave silent dances Around him to and fro; For oh, in waking The sights are not so fair, And song and silence Are not like these below. Young Love lies dreaming Till summer days are gone, - Dreaming and drowsing Away to perfect sleep: He sees the beauty Sun hath not looked upon, And tastes the fountain Unutterably deep. Him perfect music Doth hush unto his rest, And through the pauses The perfect silence calms: Oh, poor the voices Of earth from east to west, And poor earth's stillness Between her stately palms. Young Love lies drowsing Away to poppied death; Cool shadows deepen Across the sleeping face: So fails the summer With warm, delicious breath; And what hath autumn To give us in its place? Draw close the curtains Of branched evergreen; Change cannot touch them With fading fingers sere: Here the first violets Perhaps will bud unseen, And a dove, may be, Return to nestle here.

Epilogue To "Mithridates, King Of Pontus;" By Nathan Lee, 1678.

John Dryden

You've seen a pair of faithful lovers die: And much you care; for most of you will cry, 'Twas a just judgment on their constancy. For, heaven be thank'd, we live in such an age, When no man dies for love, but on the stage: And even those martyrs are but rare in plays; A cursed sign how much true faith decays. Love is no more a violent desire; 'Tis a mere metaphor, a painted fire. In all our sex, the name examined well, Tis pride to gain, and vanity to tell. In woman, 'tis of subtle interest made: Curse on the punk that made it first a trade! She first did wit's prerogative remove, And made a fool presume to prate of love. Let honour and preferment go for gold; But glorious beauty is not to be sold: Or, if it be, 'tis at a rate so high, That nothing but adoring it should buy. Yet the rich cullies may their boasting spare; They purchase but sophisticated ware. 'Tis prodigality that buys deceit, Where both the giver and the taker cheat. Men but refine on the old half-crown way; And women fight, like Swissers, for their pay.

The Balloon.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

You've seen balloons set, haven't you? So stately they ascend It is as swans discarded you For duties diamond. Their liquid feet go softly out Upon a sea of blond; They spurn the air as 't were too mean For creatures so renowned. Their ribbons just beyond the eye, They struggle some for breath, And yet the crowd applauds below; They would not encore death. The gilded creature strains and spins, Trips frantic in a tree, Tears open her imperial veins And tumbles in the sea. The crowd retire with an oath The dust in streets goes down, And clerks in counting-rooms observe, ''T was only a balloon.'

To My Little Son Preston

Madison Julius Cawein

You, who are four years old; You, with the eyes of blue; You with the age of gold Young in the heart of you, Boy with the eyes of blue: You, with the face so fair, Innocent-uttered words, All the glad sunlight there, Music of all the birds, Boy, in your face and words: Take you my sheaf of rhymes, Sung for your childish ear; Rhymes you have loved at times Begged for, and sat to hear, Lending a loving ear. Since you have listened, sweet, They to some worth attained; Since in your heart's young beat They for a while remained, They to some worth attained.

Sonnet XXII. Subject Continued.

Anna Seward

You, whose dull spirits feel not the fine glow Enthusiasm breathes, no more of light Perceive ye in rapt POESY, tho' bright In Fancy's richest colouring, than can flow From jewel'd treasures in the central night Of their deep caves. - You have no Sun to show Their inborn radiance pure. - Go, Snarlers, go; Nor your defects of feeling, and of sight, To charge upon the POET thus presume, Ye lightless minds, whate'er of title proud, Scholar, or Sage, or Critic, ye assume, Arraigning his high claims with censure loud, Or sickly scorn; yours, yours is all the cloud, Gems cannot sparkle in the midnight Gloom.

Milking O' The Kye

John Clare

Young Jenny wakens at the dawn, Fresh as carnations newly blown, And o'er the pasture every morn Goes milking o' the kye. She sings her songs of happy glee, While round her swirls the humble bee; The butterfly, from tree to tree, Goes gaily flirting by. Young Jenny was a bonny thing As ever wakened in the Spring, And blythe she to herself could sing At milking o' the kye. She loved to hear the old crows croak Upon the ash tree and the oak, And noisy pies that almost spoke At milking o' the kye. She crop't the wild thyme every night, Scenting so sweet the dewy light, And hid it in her breast so white At milking o' the kye. I met and clasped her in my arms, The finest flower on twenty farms; Her snow-white breast my fancy warms At milking o' the kye.

The Power of Prayer; or, The First Steamboat up the Alabama.

Sidney Lanier

By Sidney and Clifford Lanier. You, Dinah! Come and set me whar de ribber-roads does meet. De Lord, HE made dese black-jack roots to twis' into a seat. Umph, dar! De Lord have mussy on dis blin' ole nigger's feet. It 'pear to me dis mornin' I kin smell de fust o' June. I 'clar', I b'lieve dat mockin'-bird could play de fiddle soon! Dem yonder town-bells sounds like dey was ringin' in de moon. Well, ef dis nigger IS been blind for fo'ty year or mo', Dese ears, DEY sees the world, like, th'u' de cracks dat's in de do'. For de Lord has built dis body wid de windows 'hind and 'fo'. I know my front ones IS stopped up, and things is sort o' dim, But den, th'u' DEM, temptation's rain won't leak in on ole Jim! De back ones show me earth enough, aldo' dey's mons'ous slim. And as for Hebben, - bless de Lord, and praise His holy name - DAT shines in all de co'ners of dis cabin jes' de same As ef dat cabin hadn't nar' a plank upon de frame! Who CALL me? Listen down de ribber, Dinah! Don't you hyar Somebody holl'in' "Hoo, Jim, hoo?" My Sarah died las' y'ar; IS dat black angel done come back to call ole Jim f'om hyar? My stars, dat cain't be Sarah, shuh! Jes' listen, Dinah, NOW! What KIN be comin' up dat bend, a-makin' sich a row? Fus' bellerin' like a pawin' bull, den squealin' like a sow? De Lord 'a' mussy sakes alive, jes' hear, - ker-woof, ker-woof - De Debble's comin' round dat bend, he's comin' shuh enuff, A-splashin' up de water wid his tail and wid his hoof! I'se pow'ful skeered; but neversomeless I ain't gwine run away: I'm gwine to stand stiff-legged for de Lord dis blessed day. YOU screech, and swish de water, Satan! I'se a gwine to pray. O hebbenly Marster, what thou willest, dat mus' be jes' so, And ef Thou hast bespoke de word, some nigger's bound to go. Den, Lord, please take ole Jim, and lef young Dinah hyar below! 'Scuse Dinah, 'scuse her, Marster; for she's sich a little chile, She hardly jes' begin to scramble up de homeyard stile, But dis ole traveller's feet been tired dis many a many a mile. I'se wufless as de rotten pole of las' year's fodder-stack. De rheumatiz done bit my bones; you hear 'em crack and crack? I cain'st sit down 'dout gruntin' like 'twas breakin' o' my back. What use de wheel, when hub and spokes is warped and split, and rotten? What use dis dried-up cotton-stalk, when Life done picked my cotton? I'se like a word dat somebody said, and den done been forgotten. But, Dinah! Shuh dat gal jes' like dis little hick'ry tree, De sap's jes' risin in her; she do grow owdaciouslee - Lord, ef you's clarin' de underbrush, don't cut her down, cut me! I would not proud persume - but I'll boldly make reques'; Sence Jacob had dat wrastlin'-match, I, too, gwine do my bes'; When Jacob got all underholt, de Lord he answered Yes! And what for waste de vittles, now, and th'ow away de bread, Jes' for to strength dese idle hands to scratch dis ole bald head? T'ink of de 'conomy, Marster, ef dis ole Jim was dead! Stop; - ef I don't believe de Debble's gone on up de stream! Jes' now he squealed down dar; - hush; dat's a mighty weakly scream! Yas, sir, he's gone, he's gone; - he snort way off, like in a dream! O glory hallelujah to de Lord dat reigns on high! De Debble's fai'ly skeered to def, he done gone flyin' by; I know'd he couldn' stand dat pra'r, I felt my Marster nigh! You, Dinah; ain't you 'shamed, now, dat you didn' trust to grace? I heerd you thrashin' th'u' de bushes when he showed his face! You fool, you think de Debble couldn't beat YOU in a race? I tell you, Dinah, jes' as shuh as you is standin' dar, When folks starts prayin', answer-angels drops down th'u' de a'r. YAS, DINAH, WHAR 'OULD YOU BE NOW, JES' 'CEPTIN' FUR DAT PRA'R? Baltimore, 1875.

The Blues: A Literary Eclogue.

George Gordon Byron

"Nimium ne crede colori." - Virgil, [Ecl. ii. 17] O trust not, ye beautiful creatures, to hue, Though your hair were as red, as your stockings are blue. Introduction To The Blues. Byron's correspondence does not explain the mood in which he wrote The Blues, or afford the slightest hint or clue to its motif or occasion. In a letter to Murray, dated Ravenna, August 7, 1821, he writes, "I send you a thing which I scribbled off yesterday, a mere buffoonery, to quiz 'The Blues.' If published it must be anonymously.... You may send me a proof if you think it worth the trouble." Six weeks later, September 20, he had changed his mind. "You need not," he says, "send The Blues, which is a mere buffoonery not meant for publication." With these intimations our knowledge ends, and there is nothing to show why in August, 1821, he took it into his head "to quiz The Blues," or why, being so minded, he thought it worth while to quiz them in so pointless and belated a fashion. We can but guess that an allusion in a letter from England, an incident at a conversazione at Ravenna, or perhaps the dialogues in Peacock's novels, Melincourt and Nightmare Abbey, brought to his recollection the half-modish, half-literary coteries of the earlier years of the Regency, and that he sketches the scenes and persons of his eclogue not from life, but from memory. In the Diary of 1813, 1814, there is more than one mention of the "Blues." For instance, November 27, 1813, he writes, "Sotheby is a Litt'rateur, the oracle of the Coteries of the * *'s, Lydia White (Sydney Smith's 'Tory Virgin'), Mrs. Wilmot (she, at least, is a swan, and might frequent a purer stream), Lady Beaumont and all the Blues, with Lady Charlemont at their head." Again on December 1, "To-morrow there is a party purple at the 'blue' Miss Berry's. Shall I go? um! - I don't much affect your blue-bottles; - but one ought to be civil.... Perhaps that blue-winged Kashmirian butterfly of book-learning Lady Charlemont will be there" (see Letters, 1898, ii. 333, 358, note 2). Byron was, perhaps, a more willing guest at literary entertainments than he professed to be. "I met him," says Sir Walter Scott (Memoirs of the Life, etc., 1838, ii. 167), "frequently in society.... Some very agreeable parties I can recollect, particularly one at Sir George Beaumont's, where the amiable landlord had assembled some persons distinguished for talent. Of these I need only mention the late Sir Humphry Davy.... Mr. Richard Sharpe and Mr. Rogers were also present." Again, Miss Berry, in her Journal (1866, in. 49) records, May 8, 1815, that "Lord and Lady Byron persuaded me to go with them to Miss [Lydia] White (vide post, p. 587). Never have I seen a more imposing convocation of ladies arranged in a circle than when we entered ... Lord Byron brought me home. He stayed to supper." If he did not affect "your blue-bottles," he was on intimate terms with Madame de Sta'l, "the Begum of Literature," as Moore called her; with the Contessa d'Albrizzi (the De Sta'l of Italy); with Mrs. Wilmot, the inspirer of "She walks in beauty like the night;" with Mrs. Shelley; with Lady Blessington. Moreover, to say nothing of his "mathematical wife," who was as "blue as ether," the Countess Guiccioli could not only read and "inwardly digest" Corinna (see letter to Moore, January 2, 1820), but knew the Divina Commedia by heart, and was a critic as well as an inspirer of her lover's poetry. If it is difficult to assign a reason or occasion for the composition of The Blues, it is a harder, perhaps an impossible, task to identify all the dramatis person'. Botherby, Lady Bluemount, and Miss Diddle are, obviously, Sotheby, Lady Beaumont, and Lydia White. Scamp the Lecturer may be Hazlitt, who had incurred Byron's displeasure by commenting on his various and varying estimates of Napoleon (see Lectures on the English Poets, 1818, p. 304, and Don Juan, Canto 1. stanza ii. line 7, note to Buonaparte). Inkel seems to be meant for Byron himself, and Tracy, a friend, not a Lake poet, for Moore. Sir Richard and Lady Bluebottle may possibly symbolize Lord and Lady Holland; and Miss Lilac is, certainly, Miss Milbanke, the "Annabella" of Byron's courtship, not the "moral Clytemnestra" of his marriage and separation. The Blues was published anonymously in the third number of the Liberal, which appeared April 26, 1823. The "Eclogue" was not attributed to Byron, and met with greater contempt than it deserved. In the Noctes Ambrosiance (Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, May, 1823, vol. xiii. p. 607), the third number of the Liberal is dismissed with the remark, "The last Number contains not one line of Byron's! Thank God! he has seen his error, and kicked them out." Brief but contemptuous notices appeared in the Literary Chronicle, April 26, and the Literary Gazette, May 3, 1823; while a short-lived periodical, named the Literary Register (May 3, quoted at length in John Bull, May 4, 1823), implies that the author (i.e. Leigh Hunt) would be better qualified to "catch the manners" of Lisson Grove than of May Fair. It is possible that this was the "last straw," and that the reception of The Blues hastened Byron's determination to part company with the profitless and ill-omened Liberal. The Blues:[609] A Literary Eclogue. Eclogue The First. London. - Before the Door of a Lecture Room. [Enter TRACY, meeting INKEL.] Ink.        You're too late. Tra.        Is it over? Ink.        Nor will be this hour. But the benches are crammed, like a garden in flower. With the pride of our belles, who have made it the fashion; So, instead of "beaux arts," we may say "la belle passion" For learning, which lately has taken the lead in The world, and set all the fine gentlemen reading. Tra.        I know it too well, and have worn out my patience With studying to study your new publications. There's Vamp, Scamp, and Mouthy, and Wordswords and Co.[610] With their damnable - - Ink.        Hold, my good friend, do you know Whom you speak to? Tra.        Right well, boy, and so does "the Row:"[611] You're an author - a poet - Ink.        And think you that I Can stand tamely in silence, to hear you decry The Muses? Tra.        Excuse me: I meant no offence To the Nine; though the number who make some pretence To their favours is such - - but the subject to drop, I am just piping hot from a publisher's shop, (Next door to the pastry-cook's; so that when I Cannot find the new volume I wanted to buy On the bibliopole's shelves, it is only two paces, As one finds every author in one of those places:) Where I just had been skimming a charming critique, So studded with wit, and so sprinkled with Greek! Where your friend - you know who - has just got such a threshing, That it is, as the phrase goes, extremely "refreshing."[612] What a beautiful word! Ink.        Very true; 'tis so soft And so cooling - they use it a little too oft; And the papers have got it at last - but no matter. So they've cut up our friend then? Tra.        Not left him a tatter - Not a rag of his present or past reputation, Which they call a disgrace to the age, and the nation. Ink.        I'm sorry to hear this! for friendship, you know - Our poor friend! - but I thought it would terminate so. Our friendship is such, I'll read nothing to shock it. You don't happen to have the Review in your pocket? Tra.        No; I left a round dozen of authors and others (Very sorry, no doubt, since the cause is a brother's) All scrambling and jostling, like so many imps, And on fire with impatience to get the next glimpse. Ink.        Let us join them. Tra.        What, won't you return to the lecture? Ink.        Why the place is so crammed, there's not room for a spectre. Besides, our friend Scamp is to-day so absurd - [613] Tra.        How can you know that till you hear him? Ink.        I heard Quite enough; and, to tell you the truth, my retreat Was from his vile nonsense, no less than the heat. Tra.        I have had no great loss then? Ink.        Loss! - such a palaver! I'd inoculate sooner my wife with the slaver Of a dog when gone rabid, than listen two hours To the torrent of trash which around him he pours, Pumped up with such effort, disgorged with such labour, That - - come - do not make me speak ill of one's neighbour. Tra.        I make you! Ink.        Yes, you! I said nothing until You compelled me, by speaking the truth - - Tra.        To speak ill? Is that your deduction? Ink.        When speaking of Scamp ill, I certainly follow, not set an example. The fellow's a fool, an impostor, a zany. Tra.        And the crowd of to-day shows that one fool makes many. But we two will be wise. Ink.        Pray, then, let us retire. Tra.        I would, but - - Ink.        There must be attraction much higher Than Scamp, or the Jew's harp he nicknames his lyre, To call you to this hotbed. Tra.        I own it - 'tis true - A fair lady - - Ink.        A spinster? Tra.        Miss Lilac. Ink.        The Blue! Tra.        The heiress! The angel! Ink.        The devil! why, man, Pray get out of this hobble as fast as you can. You wed with Miss Lilac! 'twould be your perdition: She's a poet, a chymist, a mathematician.[614] Tra.        I say she's an angel. Ink.        Say rather an angle. If you and she marry, you'll certainly wrangle. I say she's a Blue, man, as blue as the ether. Tra.        And is that any cause for not coming together? Ink.        Humph! I can't say I know any happy alliance Which has lately sprung up from a wedlock with science. She's so learn'd in all things, and fond of concerning Herself in all matters connected with learning, That - - Tra.        What? Ink.        I perhaps may as well hold my tongue; But there's five hundred people can tell you you're wrong. Tra.        You forget Lady Lilac's as rich as a Jew. Ink.        Is it miss or the cash of mamma you pursue? Tra.        Why, Jack, I'll be frank with you - something of both. The girl's a fine girl. Ink.        And you feel nothing loth To her good lady-mother's reversion; and yet Her life is as good as your own, I will bet. Tra.        Let her live, and as long as she likes; I demand Nothing more than the heart of her daughter and hand. Ink.        Why, that heart's in the inkstand - that hand on the pen. Tra.        A propos - Will you write me a song now and then? Ink.        To what purpose? Tra.        You know, my dear friend, that in prose My talent is decent, as far as it goes; But in rhyme - - Ink.        You're a terrible stick, to be sure. Tra.        I own it; and yet, in these times, there's no lure For the heart of the fair like a stanza or two; And so, as I can't, will you furnish a few? Ink.        In your name? Tra.        In my name. I will copy them out, To slip into her hand at the very next rout. Ink.        Are you so far advanced as to hazard this? Tra.        Why, Do you think me subdued by a Blue-stocking's eye, So far as to tremble to tell her in rhyme What I've told her in prose, at the least, as sublime? Ink.        As sublime! If i be so, no need of my Muse. Tra.        But consider, dear Inkel, she's one of the "Blues."100 Ink.        As sublime! - Mr. Tracy - I've nothing to say. Stick to prose - As sublime!! - but I wish you good day. Tra.        Nay, stay, my dear fellow - consider - I'm wrong; I own it; but, prithee, compose me the song. Ink.        As sublime!! Tra.        I but used the expression in haste. Ink.        That may be, Mr. Tracy, but shows damned bad taste. Tra.        I own it, I know it, acknowledge it - what Can I say to you more? Ink.        I see what you'd be at: You disparage my parts with insidious abuse, Till you think you can turn them best to your own use. Tra.        And is that not a sign I respect them? Ink.        Why that To be sure makes a difference. Tra.        I know what is what: And you, who're a man of the gay world, no less Than a poet of t'other, may easily guess That I never could mean, by a word, to offend A genius like you, and, moreover, my friend. Ink.        No doubt; you by this time should know what is due To a man of - - but come - let us shake hands. Tra.        You knew, And you know, my dear fellow, how heartily I, Whatever you publish, am ready to buy. Ink.        That's my bookseller's business; I care not for sale; Indeed the best poems at first rather fail. There were Renegade's epics, and Botherby's plays,[615] And my own grand romance - Tra.        Had its full share of praise. I myself saw it puffed in the "Old Girl's Review."[616] Ink.        What Review? Tra.        Tis the English "Journal de Trevoux;"[617] A clerical work of our Jesuits at home. Have you never yet seen it? Ink.        That pleasure's to come. Tra.        Make haste then. Ink.        Why so? Tra.        I have heard people say That it threatened to give up the ghost t'other day.[618] Ink.        Well, that is a sign of some spirit. Tra.        No doubt. Shall you be at the Countess of Fiddlecome's rout? Ink.        I've a card, and shall go: but at present, as soon As friend Scamp shall be pleased to step down from the moon, (Where he seems to be soaring in search of his wits), And an interval grants from his lecturing fits, I'm engaged to the Lady Bluebottle's collation, To partake of a luncheon and learn'd conversation: 'Tis a sort of reunion for Scamp, on the days Of his lecture, to treat him with cold tongue and praise. And I own, for my own part, that 'tis not unpleasant. Will you go? There's Miss Lilac will also be present. Tra.        That "metal's attractive." Ink.        No doubt - to the pocket. Tra.        You should rather encourage my passion than shock it. But let us proceed; for I think by the hum - - Ink.        Very true; let us go, then, before they can come, Or else we'll be kept here an hour at their levee, On the rack of cross questions, by all the blue bevy. Hark! Zounds, they'll be on us; I know by the drone Of old Botherby's spouting ex-cathedr' tone.[619] Aye! there he is at it. Poor Scamp! better join Your friends, or he'll pay you back in your own coin. Tra.        All fair; 'tis but lecture for lecture. Ink.        That's clear. But for God's sake let's go, or the Bore will be here. Come, come: nay, I'm off. [Exit INKEL.] Tra.        You are right, and I'll follow; 'Tis high time for a "Sic me servavit Apollo."[620] And yet we shall have the whole crew on our kibes,[621] Blues, dandies, and dowagers, and second-hand scribes, All flocking to moisten their exquisite throttles With a glass of Madeira[622] at Lady Bluebottle's. [Exit TRACY.] Eclogue The Second. An Apartment in the House of LADY BLUEBOTTLE. - A Table prepared. SIR RICHARD BLUEBOTTLE solus. Was there ever a man who was married so sorry? Like a fool, I must needs do the thing in a hurry. My life is reversed, and my quiet destroyed; My days, which once passed in so gentle a void, Must now, every hour of the twelve, be employed; The twelve, do I say? - of the whole twenty-four, Is there one which I dare call my own any more? What with driving and visiting, dancing and dining, What with learning, and teaching, and scribbling, and shining, In science and art, I'll be cursed if I know Myself from my wife; for although we are two, Yet she somehow contrives that all things shall be done In a style which proclaims us eternally one. But the thing of all things which distresses me more Than the bills of the week (though they trouble me sore) Is the numerous, humorous, backbiting crew Of scribblers, wits, lecturers, white, black, and blue, Who are brought to my house as an inn, to my cost - For the bill here, it seems, is defrayed by the host - No pleasure! no leisure! no thought for my pains, But to hear a vile jargon which addles my brains; A smatter and chatter, gleaned out of reviews, By the rag, tag, and bobtail, of those they call "Blues;" A rabble who know not - - But soft, here they come! Would to God I were deaf! as I'm not, I'll be dumb. [Enter LADY BLUEBOTTLE, MISS LILAC, LADY BLUEMOUNT, MR. BOTHERBY, INKEL, TRACY, MISS MAZARINE, and others, with SCAMP the Lecturer, etc., etc.] Lady Blueb.        Ah! Sir Richard, good morning: I've brought you some friends. Sir Rich.        (bows, and afterwards aside). If friends, they're the first. Lady Blueb.        But the luncheon attends. I pray ye be seated, "sans c'r'monie." Mr. Scamp, you're fatigued; take your chair there, next me. [They all sit.] Sir Rich.        (aside). If he does, his fatigue is to come. Lady Blueb.        Mr. Tracy - Lady Bluemount - Miss Lilac - be pleased, pray, to place ye; And you, Mr. Botherby - Both.        Oh, my dear Lady, I obey. Lady Blueb.        Mr. Inkel, I ought to upbraid ye: You were not at the lecture. Ink.        Excuse me, I was; But the heat forced me out in the best part - alas! And when - Lady Blueb.        To be sure it was broiling; but then You have lost such a lecture! Both.        The best of the ten. Tra.        How can you know that? there are two more. Both.        Because I defy him to beat this day's wondrous applause. The very walls shook. Ink.        Oh, if that be the test, I allow our friend Scamp has this day done his best. Miss Lilac, permit me to help you; - a wing? Miss Lil.        No more, sir, I thank you. Who lectures next spring? Both.        Dick Dunder. Ink.        That is, if he lives. Miss Lil.        And why not? Ink.        No reason whatever, save that he's a sot. Lady Bluemount! a glass of Madeira? Lady Bluem.        With pleasure. Ink.        How does your friend Wordswords, that Windermere treasure? Does he stick to his lakes, like the leeches he sings,[623] And their gatherers, as Homer sung warriors and kings? Lady Bluem.        He has just got a place.[624] Ink.        As a footman? Lady Bluem.        For shame! Nor profane with your sneers so poetic a name. Ink.        Nay, I meant him no evil, but pitied his master; For the poet of pedlers 'twere, sure, no disaster To wear a new livery; the more, as 'tis not The first time he has turned both his creed and his coat. Lady Bluem.        For shame! I repeat. If Sir George could but hear - Lady Blueb.        Never mind our friend Inkel; we all know, my dear, 'Tis his way. Sir Rich.        But this place - Ink.        Is perhaps like friend Scamp's, A lecturer's. Lady Bluem.        Excuse me - 'tis one in the "Stamps:" He is made a collector. Tra.        Collector! Sir Rich.        How? Miss Lil.        What? Ink.        I shall think of him oft when I buy a new hat: There his works will appear - Lady Bluem.        Sir, they reach to the Ganges. Ink.        I sha'n't go so far - I can have them at Grange's.[625] Lady Bluem.        Oh fie! Miss Lil.        And for shame! Lady Bluem.        You're too bad. Both.        Very good! Lady Bluem.        How good? Lady Blueb.        He means nought - 'tis his phrase. Lady Bluem.        He grows rude. Lady Blueb.        He means nothing; nay, ask him. Lady Bluem.        Pray, Sir! did you mean What you say? Ink.        Never mind if he did; 'twill be seen That whatever he means won't alloy what he says. Both.        Sir! Ink.        Pray be content with your portion of praise; 'Twas in your defence. Both.        If you please, with submission I can make out my own. Ink.        It would be your perdition. While you live, my dear Botherby, never defend Yourself or your works; but leave both to a friend. Apropos - Is your play then accepted at last? Both.        At last? Ink.        Why I thought - that's to say - there had passed A few green-room whispers, which hinted, - you know That the taste of the actors at best is so so.[626] Both.        Sir, the green-room's in rapture, and so's the Committee. Ink.        Aye - yours are the plays for exciting our "pity And fear," as the Greek says: for "purging the mind," I doubt if you'll leave us an equal behind. Both.        I have written the prologue, and meant to have prayed For a spice of your wit in an epilogue's aid. Ink.        Well, time enough yet, when the play's to be played. Is it cast yet? Both.        The actors are fighting for parts, As is usual in that most litigious of arts. Lady Blueb.        We'll all make a party, and go the first night. Tra.        And you promised the epilogue, Inkel. Ink.        Not quite. However, to save my friend Botherby trouble, I'll do what I can, though my pains must be double. Tra.        Why so? Ink.        To do justice to what goes before. Both.        Sir, I'm happy to say, I've no fears on that score. Your parts, Mr. Inkel, are - - Ink.        Never mind mine; Stick to those of your play, which is quite your own line. Lady Bluem.        You're a fugitive writer, I think, sir, of rhymes?[627] Ink.        Yes, ma'am; and a fugitive reader sometimes. On Wordswords, for instance, I seldom alight, Or on Mouthey, his friend, without taking to flight. Lady Bluem.        Sir, your taste is too common; but time and posterity Will right these great men, and this age's severity Become its reproach. Ink.        I've no sort of objection, So I'm not of the party to take the infection. Lady Blueb.        Perhaps you have doubts that they ever will take? Ink.        Not at all; on the contrary, those of the lake Have taken already, and still will continue To take - what they can, from a groat to a guinea, Of pension or place; - but the subject's a bore. Lady Bluem.        Well, sir, the time's coming. Ink.        Scamp! don't you feel sore? What say you to this? Scamp.        They have merit, I own; Though their system's absurdity keeps it unknown, Ink.        Then why not unearth it in one of your lectures? Scamp.        It is only time past which comes under my strictures. Lady Blueb.        Come, a truce with all tartness; - the joy of my heart Is to see Nature's triumph o'er all that is art. Wild Nature! - Grand Shakespeare! Both.        And down Aristotle! Lady Bluem.        Sir George[628] thinks exactly with Lady Bluebottle: And my Lord Seventy-four,[629] who protects our dear Bard, And who gave him his place, has the greatest regard For the poet, who, singing of pedlers and asses, Has found out the way to dispense with Parnassus. Tra.        And you, Scamp! - Scamp.        I needs must confess I'm embarrassed. Ink.        Don't call upon Scamp, who's already so harassed With old schools, and new schools, and no schools, and all schools[630]. Tra.        Well, one thing is certain, that some must be fools. I should like to know who. Ink.        And I should not be sorry To know who are not: - it would save us some worry. Lady Blueb.        A truce with remark, and let nothing control This "feast of our reason, and flow of the soul." Oh! my dear Mr. Botherby! sympathise! - I Now feel such a rapture, I'm ready to fly, I feel so elastic - "so buoyant - so buoyant!"[631] Ink.        Tracy! open the window. Tra.        I wish her much joy on't. Both.        For God's sake, my Lady Bluebottle, check not This gentle emotion, so seldom our lot Upon earth. Give it way: 'tis an impulse which lifts Our spirits from earth - the sublimest of gifts; For which poor Prometheus was chained to his mountain: 'Tis the source of all sentiment - feeling's true fountain; 'Tis the Vision of Heaven upon Earth: 'tis the gas Of the soul: 'tis the seizing of shades as they pass, And making them substance: 'tis something divine: - Ink.        Shall I help you, my friend, to a little more wine? Both.        I thank you: not any more, sir, till I dine.[632] Ink.        Apropos - Do you dine with Sir Humphry to day? Tra.        I should think with Duke Humphry[633] was more in your way. Ink.        It might be of yore; but we authors now look To the Knight, as a landlord, much more than the Duke. The truth is, each writer now quite at his ease is, And (except with his publisher) dines where he pleases. But 'tis now nearly five, and I must to the Park. Tra.        And I'll take a turn with you there till 'tis dark. And you, Scamp - Scamp.        Excuse me! I must to my notes, For my lecture next week. Ink.        He must mind whom he quotes Out of "Elegant Extracts." Lady Blueb.        Well, now we break up; But remember Miss Diddle[634] invites us to sup. Ink.        Then at two hours past midnight we all meet again, For the sciences, sandwiches, hock, and champagne! Tra.        And the sweet lobster salad![635] Both.        I honour that meal; For 'tis then that our feelings most genuinely - feel. Ink.        True; feeling is truest then, far beyond question: I wish to the gods 'twas the same with digestion! Lady Blueb.        Pshaw! - never mind that; for one moment of feeling Is worth - God knows what. Ink.        'Tis at least worth concealing For itself, or what follows - But here comes your carriage. Sir Rich.        (aside). I wish all these people were d - - d with my marriage! [Exeunt.

Young Bekie

Frank Sidgwick

The Text is that of the Jamieson-Brown MS., taken down from the recitation of Mrs. Brown about 1783. In printing the ballad, Jamieson collated with the above two other Scottish copies, one in MS., another a stall-copy, a third from recitation in the north of England, a fourth 'picked off an old wall in Piccadilly' by the editor. The Story has several variations of detail in the numerous versions known (Young Bicham, Brechin, Bekie, Beachen, Beichan, Bichen, Lord Beichan, Lord Bateman, Young Bondwell, etc.), but the text here given is one of the most complete and vivid, and contains besides one feature (the 'Belly Blin') lost in all other versions but one. A similar story is current in the ballad-literature of Scandinavia, Spain, and Italy; but the English tale has undoubtedly been affected by the charming legend of Gilbert Becket, the father of Saint Thomas, who, having been captured by Admiraud, a Saracen prince, and held in durance vile, was freed by Admiraud's daughter, who then followed him to England, knowing no English but 'London' and 'Gilbert'; and after much tribulation, found him and was married to him. 'Becket' is sufficiently near 'Bekie' to prove contamination, but not to prove that the legend is the origin of the ballad. The Belly Blin (Billie Blin = billie, a man; blin', blind, and so Billie Blin = Blindman's Buff, formerly called Hoodman Blind) occurs in certain other ballads, such as Cospatrick, Willie's Lady, and the Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter; also in a mutilated ballad of the Percy Folio, King Arthur and King Cornwall, under the name Burlow Beanie. In the latter case he is described as 'a lodly feend, with seuen heads, and one body,' breathing fire; but in general he is a serviceable household demon. Cp. German bilwiz, and Dutch belewitte. YOUNG BEKIE 1. Young Bekie was as brave a knight As ever sail'd the sea; An' he's doen him to the court of France, To serve for meat and fee. 2. He had nae been i' the court of France A twelvemonth nor sae long, Til he fell in love with the king's daughter, An' was thrown in prison strong. 3. The king he had but ae daughter, Burd Isbel was her name; An' she has to the prison-house gane, To hear the prisoner's mane. 4. 'O gin a lady woud borrow me, At her stirrup-foot I woud rin; Or gin a widow wad borrow me, I woud swear to be her son. 5. 'Or gin a virgin woud borrow me, I woud wed her wi' a ring; I'd gi' her ha's, I'd gie her bowers, The bonny tow'rs o' Linne.' 6. O barefoot, barefoot gaed she but, An' barefoot came she ben; It was no for want o' hose an' shoone, Nor time to put them on; 7. But a' for fear that her father dear, Had heard her making din: She's stown the keys o' the prison-house dor An' latten the prisoner gang. 8. O whan she saw him, Young Bekie, Her heart was wondrous sair! For the mice but an' the bold rottons Had eaten his yallow hair. 9. She's gi'en him a shaver for his beard, A comber till his hair, Five hunder pound in his pocket, To spen', and nae to spair. 10. She's gi'en him a steed was good in need, An' a saddle o' royal bone, A leash o' hounds o' ae litter, An' Hector called one. 11. Atween this twa a vow was made, 'Twas made full solemnly, That or three years was come and gane, Well married they shoud be. 12. He had nae been in's ain country A twelvemonth till an end, Till he's forc'd to marry a duke's daughter, Or than lose a' his land. 13. 'Ohon, alas!' says Young Bekie, 'I know not what to dee; For I canno win to Burd Isbel, And she kensnae to come to me.' 14. O it fell once upon a day Burd Isbel fell asleep, An' up it starts the Belly Blin, An' stood at her bed-feet. 15. 'O waken, waken, Burd Isbel, How [can] you sleep so soun', Whan this is Bekie's wedding day, An' the marriage gain' on? 16. 'Ye do ye to your mither's bow'r, Think neither sin nor shame; An' ye tak twa o' your mither's marys, To keep ye frae thinking lang. 17. 'Ye dress yoursel' in the red scarlet, An' your marys in dainty green, An' ye pit girdles about your middles Woud buy an earldome. 18. 'O ye gang down by yon sea-side, An' down by yon sea-stran'; Sae bonny will the Hollans boats Come rowin' till your han'. 19. 'Ye set your milk-white foot abord, Cry, Hail ye, Domine! An' I shal be the steerer o't, To row you o'er the sea.' 20. She's tane her till her mither's bow'r, Thought neither sin nor shame, An' she took twa o' her mither's marys, To keep her frae thinking lang. 21. She dress'd hersel' i' the red scarlet. Her marys i' dainty green, And they pat girdles about their middles Woud buy an earldome. 22. An' they gid down by yon sea-side, An' down by yon sea-stran'; Sae bonny did the Hollan boats Come rowin' to their han'. 23. She set her milk-white foot on board, Cried 'Hail ye, Domine!' An' the Belly Blin was the steerer o't, To row her o'er the sea. 24. Whan she came to Young Bekie's gate, She heard the music play; Sae well she kent frae a' she heard, It was his wedding day. 25. She's pitten her han' in her pocket, Gin the porter guineas three; 'Hae, tak ye that, ye proud porter, Bid the bride-groom speake to me.' 26. O whan that he cam up the stair, He fell low down on his knee: He hail'd the king, an' he hail'd the queen, An' he hail'd him, Young Bekie. 27. 'O I've been porter at your gates This thirty years an' three; But there's three ladies at them now, Their like I never did see. 28. 'There's ane o' them dress'd in red scarlet, And twa in dainty green, An' they hae girdles about their middles Woud buy an earldome.' 29. Then out it spake the bierly bride, Was a' goud to the chin: 'Gin she be braw without,' she says, 'We's be as braw within.' 30. Then up it starts him, Young Bekie, An' the tears was in his ee: 'I'll lay my life it's Burd Isbel, Come o'er the sea to me.' 31. O quickly ran he down the stair, An' whan he saw 'twas she, He kindly took her in his arms, And kiss'd her tenderly. 32. 'O hae ye forgotten, Young Bekie The vow ye made to me, Whan I took ye out o' the prison strong Whan ye was condemn'd to die? 33. 'I gae you a steed was good in need, An' a saddle o' royal bone, A leash o' hounds o' ae litter, An' Hector called one.' 34. It was well kent what the lady said, That it wasnae a lee, For at ilka word the lady spake, The hound fell at her knee. 35. 'Tak hame, tak hame your daughter dear, A blessing gae her wi', For I maun marry my Burd Isbel, That's come o'er the sea to me.' 36. 'Is this the custom o' your house, Or the fashion o' your lan', To marry a maid in a May mornin', An' send her back at even?'

The Fleet

Alfred Lord Tennyson

I. You, you, if you shall fail to understand What England is, and what her all-in-all, On you will come the curse of all the land, Should this old England fall Which Nelson left so great. II. His isle, the mightiest Ocean-power on earth, Our own fair isle, the lord of every sea' Her fuller franchise'what would that be worth' Her ancient fame of Free' Where she . . . a fallen state? III. Her dauntless army scatter'd, and so small, Her island-myriads fed from alien lands' The fleet of England is her all-in-all; Her fleet is in your hands, And in her fleet her fate. IV. You, you, that have the ordering of her fleet, If you should only compass her disgrace, When all men starve, the wild mob's million feet Will kick you from your place, But then too late, too late.

Young Jamie, Pride Of A' The Plain.

Robert Burns

Tune - "The carlin o' the glen." I. Young Jamie, pride of a' the plain, Sae gallant and sae gay a swain; Thro' a' our lasses he did rove, And reign'd resistless king of love: But now wi' sighs and starting tears, He strays amang the woods and briers; Or in the glens and rocky caves His sad complaining dowie raves. II. I wha sae late did range and rove, And chang'd with every moon my love, I little thought the time was near, Repentance I should buy sae dear: The slighted maids my torment see, And laugh at a' the pangs I dree; While she, my cruel, scornfu' fair, Forbids me e'er to see her mair!

On Himself.

Robert Herrick

Young I was, but now am old, But I am not yet grown cold; I can play, and I can twine 'Bout a virgin like a vine: In her lap too I can lie Melting, and in fancy die; And return to life if she Claps my cheek, or kisseth me: Thus, and thus it now appears That our love outlasts our years.

L'Ann'e Terrible.

Victor-Marie Hugo

TO LITTLE JEANNE. ("Vous e'tes donc hier un an.") [September, 1870.] You've lived a year, then, yesterday, sweet child, Prattling thus happily! So fledglings wild, New-hatched in warmer nest 'neath sheltering bough, Chirp merrily to feel their feathers grow. Your mouth's a rose, Jeanne! In these volumes grand Whose pictures please you - while I trembling stand To see their big leaves tattered by your hand - Are noble lines; but nothing half your worth, When all your tiny frame rustles with mirth To welcome me. No work of author wise Can match the thought half springing to your eyes, And your dim reveries, unfettered, strange, Regarding man with all the boundless range Of angel innocence. Methinks, 'tis clear That God's not far, Jeanne, when I see you here. Ah! twelve months old: 'tis quite an age, and brings Grave moments, though your soul to rapture clings, You're at that hour of life most like to heaven, When present joy no cares, no sorrows leaven When man no shadow feels: if fond caress Round parent twines, children the world possess. Your waking hopes, your dreams of mirth and love From Charles to Alice, father to mother, rove; No wider range of view your heart can take Than what her nursing and his bright smiles make; They two alone on this your opening hour Can gleams of tenderness and gladness pour: They two - none else, Jeanne! Yet 'tis just, and I, Poor grandsire, dare but to stand humbly by. You come - I go: though gloom alone my right, Blest be the destiny which gives you light. Your fair-haired brother George and you beside Me play - in watching you is all my pride; And all I ask - by countless sorrows tried - The grave; o'er which in shadowy form may show Your cradles gilded by the morning's glow. Pure new-born wonderer! your infant life Strange welcome found, Jeanne, in this time of strife. Like wild-bee humming through the woods your play, And baby smiles have dared a world at bay: Your tiny accents lisp their gentle charms To mighty Paris clashing mighty arms. Ah! when I see you, child, and when I hear You sing, or try, with low voice whispering near, And touch of fingers soft, my grief to cheer, I dream this darkness, where the tempests groan, Trembles, and passes with half-uttered moan. For though these hundred towers of Paris bend, Though close as foundering ship her glory's end, Though rocks the universe, which we defend; Still to great cannon on our ramparts piled, God sends His blessing by a little child. MARWOOD TUCKER.

Julot the Apache

Robert William Service

Ten sous. . . . I think one can sing best of poverty when one is holding it at arm's length. I'm sure that when I wrote these lines, fortune had for a moment tweaked me by the nose. To-night, however, I am truly down to ten sous. It is for that I have stayed in my room all day, rolled in my blankets and clutching my pen with clammy fingers. I must work, work, work. I must finish my book before poverty crushes me. I am not only writing for my living but for my life. Even to-day my Muse was mutinous. For hours and hours anxiously I stared at a paper that was blank; nervously I paced up and down my garret; bitterly I flung myself on my bed. Then suddenly it all came. Line after line I wrote with hardly a halt. So I made another of my Ballads of the Boulevards. Here it is: Julot the Apache You've heard of Julot the apache, and Gigolette, his m'me. . . . Montmartre was their hunting-ground, but Belville was their home. A little chap just like a boy, with smudgy black mustache, - Yet there was nothing juvenile in Julot the apache. From head to heel as tough as steel, as nimble as a cat, With every trick of twist and kick, a master of savate. And Gigolette was tall and fair, as stupid as a cow, With three combs in the greasy hair she banged upon her brow. You'd see her on the Place Pigalle on any afternoon, A primitive and strapping wench as brazen as the moon. And yet there is a tale that's told of Clichy after dark, And two gendarmes who swung their arms with Julot for a mark. And oh, but they'd have got him too; they banged and blazed away, When like a flash a woman leapt between them and their prey. She took the medicine meant for him; she came down with a crash . . . "Quick now, and make your get-away, O Julot the apache!" . . . But no! He turned, ran swiftly back, his arms around her met; They nabbed him sobbing like a kid, and kissing Gigolette. Now I'm a reckless painter chap who loves a jamboree, And one night in Cyrano's bar I got upon a spree; And there were trollops all about, and crooks of every kind, But though the place was reeling round I didn't seem to mind. Till down I sank, and all was blank when in the bleary dawn I woke up in my studio to find - my money gone; Three hundred francs I'd scraped and squeezed to pay my quarter's rent. "Some one has pinched my wad," I wailed; "it never has been spent." And as I racked my brains to seek how I could raise some more, Before my cruel landlord kicked me cowering from the door: A knock . . . "Come in," I gruffly groaned; I did not raise my head, Then lo! I heard a husky voice, a swift and silky tread: "You got so blind, last night, mon vieux, I collared all your cash - Three hundred francs. . . . There! Nom de Dieu," said Julot the apache. And that was how I came to know Julot and Gigolette, And we would talk and drink a bock, and smoke a cigarette. And I would meditate upon the artistry of crime, And he would tell of cracking cribs and cops and doing time; Or else when he was flush of funds he'd carelessly explain He'd biffed some bloated bourgeois on the border of the Seine. So gentle and polite he was, just like a man of peace, And not a desperado and the terror of the police. Now one day in a bistro that's behind the Place Vend'me I came on Julot the apache, and Gigolette his m'me. And as they looked so very grave, says I to them, says I, "Come on and have a little glass, it's good to rinse the eye. You both look mighty serious; you've something on the heart." "Ah, yes," said Julot the apache, "we've something to impart. When such things come to folks like us, it isn't very gay . . . It's Gigolette - she tells me that a gosse is on the way." Then Gigolette, she looked at me with eyes like stones of gall: "If we were honest folks," said she, "I wouldn't mind at all. But then . . . you know the life we lead; well, anyway I mean (That is, providing it's a girl) to call her Angeline." "Cheer up," said I; "it's all in life. There's gold within the dross. Come on, we'll drink another verre to Angeline the gosse." And so the weary winter passed, and then one April morn The worthy Julot came at last to say the babe was born. "I'd like to chuck it in the Seine," he sourly snarled, "and yet I guess I'll have to let it live, because of Gigolette." I only laughed, for sure I saw his spite was all a bluff, And he was prouder than a prince behind his manner gruff. Yet every day he'd blast the brat with curses deep and grim, And swear to me that Gigolette no longer thought of him. And then one night he dropped the mask; his eyes were sick with dread, And when I offered him a smoke he groaned and shook his head: "I'm all upset; it's Angeline . . . she's covered with a rash . . . She'll maybe die, my little gosse," cried Julot the apache. But Angeline, I joy to say, came through the test all right, Though Julot, so they tell me, watched beside her day and night. And when I saw him next, says he: "Come up and dine with me. We'll buy a beefsteak on the way, a bottle and some brie." And so I had a merry night within his humble home, And laughed with Angeline the gosse and Gigolette the m'me. And every time that Julot used a word the least obscene, How Gigolette would frown at him and point to Angeline: Oh, such a little innocent, with hair of silken floss, I do not wonder they were proud of Angeline the gosse. And when her arms were round his neck, then Julot says to me: "I must work harder now, mon vieux, since I've to work for three." He worked so very hard indeed, the police dropped in one day, And for a year behind the bars they put him safe away. So dark and silent now, their home; they'd gone - I wondered where, Till in a laundry near I saw a child with shining hair; And o'er the tub a strapping wench, her arms in soapy foam; Lo! it was Angeline the gosse, and Gigolette the m'me. And so I kept an eye on them and saw that all went right, Until at last came Julot home, half crazy with delight. And when he'd kissed them both, says he: "I've had my fill this time. I'm on the honest now, I am; I'm all fed up with crime. You mark my words, the page I turn is going to be clean, I swear it on the head of her, my little Angeline." And so, to finish up my tale, this morning as I strolled Along the boulevard I heard a voice I knew of old. I saw a rosy little man with walrus-like mustache . . . I stopped, I stared. . . . By all the gods! 'twas Julot the apache. "I'm in the garden way," he said, "and doing mighty well; I've half an acre under glass, and heaps of truck to sell. Come out and see. Oh come, my friend, on Sunday, wet or shine . . . Say! - it's the First Communion of that little girl of mine."

Calidore: A Fragment

John Keats

Young Calidore is paddling o'er the lake; His healthful spirit eager and awake To feel the beauty of a silent eve, Which seem'd full loath this happy world to leave; The light dwelt o'er the scene so lingeringly. He bares his forehead to the cool blue sky, And smiles at the far clearness all around, Until his heart is well nigh over wound, And turns for calmness to the pleasant green Of easy slopes, and shadowy trees that lean So elegantly o'er the waters' brim And show their blossoms trim. Scarce can his clear and nimble eye-sight follow The freaks, and dartings of the black-wing'd swallow, Delighting much, to see it half at rest, Dip so refreshingly its wings, and breast 'Gainst the smooth surface, and to mark anon, The widening circles into nothing gone. And now the sharp keel of his little boat Comes up with ripple, and with easy float, And glides into a bed of water lillies: Broad leav'd are they and their white canopies Are upward turn'd to catch the heavens' dew. Near to a little island's point they grew; Whence Calidore might have the goodliest view Of this sweet spot of earth. The bowery shore Went off in gentle windings to the hoar And light blue mountains: but no breathing man With a warm heart, and eye prepared to scan Nature's clear beauty, could pass lightly by Objects that look'd out so invitingly On either side. These, gentle Calidore Greeted, as he had known them long before. The sidelong view of swelling leafiness, Which the glad setting sun, in gold doth dress; Whence ever, and anon the jay outsprings, And scales upon the beauty of its wings. The lonely turret, shatter'd, and outworn, Stands venerably proud; too proud to mourn Its long lost grandeur: fir trees grow around, Aye dropping their hard fruit upon the ground. The little chapel with the cross above Upholding wreaths of ivy; the white dove, That on the windows spreads his feathers light, And seems from purple clouds to wing its flight. Green tufted islands casting their soft shades Across the lake; sequester'd leafy glades, That through the dimness of their twilight show Large dock leaves, spiral foxgloves, or the glow Of the wild cat's eyes, or the silvery stems Of delicate birch trees, or long grass which hems A little brook. The youth had long been viewing These pleasant things, and heaven was bedewing The mountain flowers, when his glad senses caught A trumpet's silver voice. Ah! it was fraught With many joys for him: the warder's ken Had found white coursers prancing in the glen: Friends very dear to him he soon will see; So pushes off his boat most eagerly, And soon upon the lake he skims along, Deaf to the nightingale's first under-song; Nor minds he the white swans that dream so sweetly: His spirit flies before him so completely. And now he turns a jutting point of land, Whence may be seen the castle gloomy, and grand: Nor will a bee buzz round two swelling peaches, Before the point of his light shallop reaches Those marble steps that through the water dip: Now over them he goes with hasty trip, And scarcely stays to ope the folding doors: Anon he leaps along the oaken floors Of halls and corridors. Delicious sounds! those little bright-eyed things That float about the air on azure wings, Had been less heartfelt by him than the clang Of clattering hoofs; into the court he sprang, Just as two noble steeds, and palfreys twain, Were slanting out their necks with loosened rein; While from beneath the threat'ning portcullis They brought their happy burthens. What a kiss, What gentle squeeze he gave each lady's hand! How tremblingly their delicate ancles spann'd! Into how sweet a trance his soul was gone, While whisperings of affection Made him delay to let their tender feet Come to the earth; with an incline so sweet From their low palfreys o'er his neck they bent: And whether there were tears of languishment, Or that the evening dew had pearl'd their tresses, He feels a moisture on his cheek, and blesses With lips that tremble, and with glistening eye All the soft luxury That nestled in his arms. A dimpled hand, Fair as some wonder out of fairy land, Hung from his shoulder like the drooping flowers Of whitest Cassia, fresh from summer showers: And this he fondled with his happy cheek As if for joy he would no further seek; When the kind voice of good Sir Clerimond Came to his ear, like something from beyond His present being: so he gently drew His warm arms, thrilling now with pulses new, From their sweet thrall, and forward gently bending, Thank'd heaven that his joy was never ending; While 'gainst his forehead he devoutly press'd A hand heaven made to succour the distress'd; A hand that from the world's bleak promontory Had lifted Calidore for deeds of glory. Amid the pages, and the torches' glare, There stood a knight, patting the flowing hair Of his proud horse's mane: he was withal A man of elegance, and stature tall: So that the waving of his plumes would be High as the berries of a wild ash tree, Or as the winged cap of Mercury. His armour was so dexterously wrought In shape, that sure no living man had thought It hard, and heavy steel: but that indeed It was some glorious form, some splendid weed, In which a spirit new come from the skies Might live, and show itself to human eyes. 'Tis the far-fam'd, the brave Sir Gondibert, Said the good man to Calidore alert; While the young warrior with a step of grace Came up, a courtly smile upon his face, And mailed hand held out, ready to greet The large-eyed wonder, and ambitious heat Of the aspiring boy; who as he led Those smiling ladies, often turned his head To admire the visor arched so gracefully Over a knightly brow; while they went by The lamps that from the high-roof'd hall were pendent, And gave the steel a shining quite transcendent. Soon in a pleasant chamber they are seated; The sweet-lipp'd ladies have already greeted All the green leaves that round the window clamber, To show their purple stars, and bells of amber. Sir Gondibert has doff'd his shining steel, Gladdening in the free, and airy feel Of a light mantle; and while Clerimond Is looking round about him with a fond, And placid eye, young Calidore is burning To hear of knightly deeds, and gallant spurning Of all unworthiness; and how the strong of arm Kept off dismay, and terror, and alarm From lovely woman: while brimful of this, He gave each damsel's hand so warm a kiss, And had such manly ardour in his eye, That each at other look'd half staringly; And then their features started into smiles Sweet as blue heavens o'er enchanted isles. Softly the breezes from the forest came, Softly they blew aside the taper's flame; Clear was the song from Philomel's far bower; Grateful the incense from the lime-tree flower; Mysterious, wild, the far-heard trumpet's tone; Lovely the moon in ether, all alone: Sweet too the converse of these happy mortals, As that of busy spirits when the portals Are closing in the west; or that soft humming We hear around when Hesperus is coming. Sweet be their sleep.

To A Bully

Eugene Field

You, blatant coward that you are, Upon the helpless vent your spite. Suppose you ply your trade on me; Come, monkey with this bard, and see How I'll repay your bark with bite! Ay, snarl just once at me, you brute! And I shall hound you far and wide, As fiercely as through drifted snow The shepherd dog pursues what foe Skulks on the Spartan mountain-side. The chip is on my shoulder--see? But touch it and I'll raise your fur; I'm full of business, so beware! For, though I'm loaded up for bear, I'm quite as like to kill a cur!

What it Comes to.

John Hartley

Young Alick gate wed, as all gradely chaps do, An tuk Sally for better or war; A daycenter felly ne'er foller'd a ploo, - Th' best lad ov his mother's bi far. An shoo wor as nice a young lass as yo'll see In a day's march, aw'll wager mi hat; But yo know unless fowk's dispositions agree, Tho' they're bonny, - noa matter for that. They'd better bi hawf have a hump o' ther rig, Or be favvor'd as ill as old Flew; If ther temper is sweet, chaps 'll net care a fig, Tho' his wife may have one ee or two. Young Sally had nivver been used to a farm, An shoo seem'd to know nowt abaat wark; Shoo set wi' her tooas up o'th' fender to warm, Readin novels throo mornin to dark. Alick saw 'at sich like gooins on wod'nt do, Soa one neet when they'd getten to bed, He tell'd her he thowt shoo'd best buckle too, Or else we'st be ruined, he sed. Says Sally, "its cappin to hear thi awm sewer, For tha tell'd me befooar we wor wed, Tha'd be happy wi me, an tha wanted nowt mooar If aw nivver stirred aght o' mi bed." "Tha sed aw wor bonny, an th' leets o' mi een Wor enuff for thi sunshine throo life; An tha tell'd me tha wanted to mak me a queen, - But it seems 'at tha wanted a wife." "Aw'm willin to own love's all reight in its way, An aw'm glad aw've discovered soa sooin 'At love withaat labor sooin dwindles away, - For fowk can't live o' billin an cooin." "That's my nooation too, - but aw thowt tha should try, What a wife as a laikon could be; Noa daat tha's fan livin o' love rayther dry, For aw'll own aw'd grown sickened o' thee."

Dr. Burke

Edgar Lee Masters

You've heard of potters' wheels and potters' hands. I had a dream that told the human tale As well as potters' wheels or potters' hands. I saw a great hand slopping plasmic jelly Around the low sides of a giant bowl. A drop would fly upon the giant table, And quick the drop would twist up into form, Become homonculus and wave its hands, Brandish a little pistol, shoot a creature, Upspringing from another drop of plasm, Slopped on the giant table. Other drops, Flying as water from a grinding stone, Out of the giant bowl, took little crowns And put them on their heads and mounted thrones, And lorded little armies. Some became Half-drooped and sickly things, like poisoned flies. And others stood on lighted faggots, others Fed and commanded, others served and starved, But many joined the throng of animate drops, And hurried on the phantom quest. You see, Whether you call it potter's hand or hand That stirs, to no end, jelly in the bowl, You have the force outside and not inside. Invest it with a malice, wanton humor, Which likes to see the plasmic jelly slop, And rain in drops upon the giant table, And does not care what happens in the world, That giant table. All such dreams are wrong, My dream is wrong, my waking thought is right. Man can subdue the giant hand that stirs, Or turns the wheel, and so these visions err. For as this farmer, lately come to town, Picks out the finest corn seeds, and so crops A finer corn, let's look to human seed, And raise a purer stock; let's learn of him, Who does not put defective grains aside For planting in the spring, but puts aside The best for planting. For I'd like to see As much care taken with the human stock As men now take of corn, race-horses, hogs. You, Coroner Merival are right, I think. If we conserve our forests, waterways, Why not the stream of human life, which wastes Because its source is wasted, fouled. Perhaps Our coroner has started something good, And brought to public mind what might result If every man kept record of the traits Known in his family for the future use Of those to come in choosing mates. Behold, Your moralists and churchmen with your rules Brought down from Palestine, which says that life Though tainted, maddened, must not be controlled, Diverted, headed off, while life in corn, And life in hogs, that feed the life of man Should be made better for the life of man - Behold, I say, some hundred millions spent On paupers, epileptics, deaf and blind; On feeble minded, invalids, the insane - Behold, I say, this cost in gold alone, Leave for the time the tragedy of souls, Who suffer or must see such suffering, And then turn back to what? The hand that stirs, The potter's hand? Why, no - the marriage counter Where this same state in Christian charity Spending its millions, lets the fault begin, And says to epileptics and what not: - "Go breed your kind, for Jesus came to earth, And we will house and feed your progeny, Or hang, incarcerate your murderous spawn, As it may happen." And all the time we know As small grains fruit in small grains, even man In fifty matters of pathology Transmits what's in him, blindness, imbecility, Hysteria, susceptibilities To cancer and tuberculosis. Also The soil that sprouts the giant weed of madness - There's soil which will not sprout them, occupied Too full by blossoms, healthy trees. We know Such things as these - Well, I would sterilize, Or segregate these shriveled seeds and keep The soil of life for seeds select, and take The church and Jesus, if he's in the way, And say: "You stand aside, and let me raise A better and a better breed of men." Quit, shut your sniveling charities; have mercy Not on these paupers, imbeciles, diseased ones, But on the progeny you let them breed. And thereby sponge the greatest waste away, And source of life's immeasurable tragedies. Avaunt you potter hands and potter wheels! God is within us, not without us, we Are given souls to know and see and guide Ourselves and those to come, souls that compute The calculus of beauties, talents, traits, And show us that the good in seed strives on To master stocks; that even poisoned blood, And minds in chemic turmoils, mixed with blood And minds in harmony, work clean at last - Else how may normal man to-day be such With some eight billion ancestors behind, And something in him of the blood of all Who lived five hundred years ago or so, Who were diseased with alcohol and pork, And poverty? But oh these centuries Of agony and waste! Let's stop it now! And since this God within us gives us choice To let the dirty plasma flow or dam it, To give the channel to the silver stream Of starry power, which shall we do? Now choose Between your race of drunkards, imbeciles, Lunatics and neurotics, or the race Of those who sing and write, or measure space, Build temples, bridges, calculate the stars, Live long and sanely. Well, I take my son, I could have prophesied his eyes, through knowing The color of my mother's, father's eyes, The color of his mother's parent's eyes. I could have told his hair. There's subtler things. My father died before this son was born; Why does this son smack lips and turn his hand Just like my father did? Not imitation - He never saw him, and I do not do so. Refine the matter where you will, how far You choose to go, it is not eyes and hair, Chins, shape of head, of limbs, or shape of hands, Nor even features, look of eyes, nor sound Of voice that we inherit, but the traits Of inner senses, spiritual gifts, and secret Beauties and powers of spirit; which result Not solely by the compound of the souls Through conjugating cells, but in the fusion Something arises like an unknown X And starts another wonder in the soul, That comes from souls compounded. Coroner You have done well to study Elenor Murray. How do I view the matter? To begin Here is a man who looks upon a woman, Desires her, so they marry, up they step Before the marriage counter, buy a license To live together, propagate their kind. No questions asked. I'll later come to that. This couple has four children, Elenor Is second to be born. I knew this girl, I cared for her at times when she was young - Well, for the picture general, she matures Goes teaching school, leaves home, goes far away, Has restlessness and longings, ups and downs Of ecstasy and depression, has a will Which drives her onward, dreams that call to her. Goes to the war at last to sacrifice Her life in duty, and the root of this Is masochistic (though I love the flower), Comes back and dies. I call her not a drop Slopped from the giant bowl; she is a growth Proceeding on clear lines, if we could know, From cells that joined, and had within themselves The quality of the stream whose source I see As far as grandparents. And now to this: We all know what her father, mother are. No doubt the marriage counter could have seen - Or asked what was not visible. But who knows About the father's parents, or the mother's? I chance to know. The father drinks, you say? Well, he drank little when this child was born, Had he drunk much, it is the nerves which crave The solace of the cup, and not the cup Which passes from the parent to the child. His father and his mother were good blood, Steady, industrious; and just because His father and his mother had the will To fight privation, and the lonely days Of pioneering, so this son had will To fight, aspire, but at the last to growl, And darken in that drug store prison, take To drink at times in anger for a will That was so balked. Well, then your marriage counter Could scarcely ask: What is your aim in life? You clerk now in a drug store, you aspire To be a lawyer, if you find yourself Stopped on your way by poverty, the work Of clerking to earn bread, you will break down, And so affect your progeny. So, you see, For all of that the daughter Elenor Was born when this ambition had its hope, Not when it tangled up in hopelessness; And therefore is thrown out of the account. The father must be passed and given license To wed this woman. How about the mother? You never knew the mother of the mother. She had great power of life and power of soul, Lived to be eighty-seven, to the last Was tense, high voiced, excitable, ecstatic, Top full of visions, dreams, and plans for life. But worse than that at fifty lost her mind, Was two years kept at Kankakee, quite mad, Grieving for fancied wrongs against her husband Some five years dead, and praying to keep down Desire for men. Her malady was sensed When she began to wander here and there, In shops and public places, in the church, Wherever she could meet with men, one man Particularly to whom she made advances Unwomanly and strange. And so at last She turned her whole mind to the church, became Religion mad, grew mystical, believed That Jesus Christ had taken her to spouse. They kept her in confinement for two years. The rage died down at last, and she came home. But to the last was nervous, tense, high keyed. And then her mind failed totally, she died At eighty-seven here. Now I could take Some certain symbols A and a, and show Out of the laws that Mendel found for us, What chances Elenor Murray had to live Free of the madness, clear or in dilute, Diminished or made over, which came down From this old woman to her. It's enough To see in Elenor Murray certain traits, Passions and powers, ecstasies and sorrows. And from them life's misfortunes, and to see They tally, take the color of the soul Of this old woman, back of her. Even to see In Elenor Murray's mother states of soul, And states of nerves, passed on to Elenor Murray Directly by her mother. But you say, Since many say so, here's a woman's soul Most beautiful and serviceable in the world And she confutes you, in your logic chopping, Materialistic program, who would give The marriage counter power to pick the corn seed For future planting: No, I say to this. What does it come to? She had will enough, And aspiration, struck out for herself, Learned for herself, did service in the war, As many did, and died - all very good. But not so good that we could quite afford To take the chances on some other things Which might have come from her. Well, to begin Putting aside an autopsy, she died Because this neural weakness, so derived, Caught in such stress of life proved far too much For one so organized; a stress of life Which others could live through, and have lived through. The world had Elenor Murray, and she died Before she was a cost. - But just suppose No war had been to aureole her life - And she had lived here and gone mad at last Become a charge upon the state? Or yet, As she was love-mad, by the common word, And as she had neurotic tendencies, Would seek neurotic types therefore, suppose She had with some neurotic made a marriage, And brought upon us types worse than themselves; Given us the symbol double A instead Of big and little a, where are you then? You have some suicides, or murders maybe, Some crimes in sex, some madness on your hands, For which to tax the strong to raise, and raise Some millions every year. Are we so mad For beauty, sacrifice and heroism, So hungry for the stimulus of these That we cannot discern and fairly appraise What Elenor Murray was, what to the world She brought, for which we overlook the harm She might have done the world? Not if we think! And if we think, she will not seem God's flower Made spotted, pale or streaked by cross of breed, A wonder and a richness in the world; But she will seem a blossom which to these Added a novel poison with the power To spread her poison! And we may dispense With what she did and what she tried to do, No longer sentimentalists, to keep The chances growing in the world to bring A better race of men. Then Doctor Burke Left off philosophy and asked: "How many Of you who hear me, know that Elenor Murray Was distant cousin to this necrophile, This Taylor boy, I call him boy, though twenty, Who got the rope for that detested murder Of a young girl - Oh yes, let's save the seed Of stock like this!" But only David Borrow Knew Elenor was cousin to this boy. And Merival spoke up: "What is to-day? It's Thursday, it's to-morrow that he hangs. I'll go now to the jail to see this boy." "He hangs at nine o'clock," said Dr. Burke. And Merival got up to go. The party Broke up, departed. At the jail he saw The wretched creature doomed to die. And turned Half sick from seeing how he tossed and looked With glassy eyes. The sheriff had gone out. And Merival could see him, get the case. Next afternoon they met, the sheriff told This story to the coroner.

Nursery Rhyme. CCCC. Lullabies.

Unknown

[From Yorkshire and Essex. A nursery-cry. - It is also sometimes sung in the streets by boys who have small figures of wool, wood, or gypsum, & c. of lambs to sell.] Young Lambs to sell! Young Lambs to sell! If I'd as much money as I can tell, I never would cry - Young Lambs to sell!

Horace's "Sailor And Shade."

Eugene Field

Sailor. You, who have compassed land and sea Now all unburied lie; All vain your store of human lore, For you were doomed to die. The sire of Pelops likewise fell, Jove's honored mortal guest-- So king and sage of every age At last lie down to rest. Plutonian shades enfold the ghost Of that majestic one Who taught as truth that he, forsooth, Had once been Pentheus' son; Believe who may, he's passed away And what he did is done. A last night comes alike to all-- One path we all must tread, Through sore disease or stormy seas Or fields with corpses red-- Whate'er our deeds that pathway leads To regions of the dead. Shade. The fickle twin Illyrian gales O'erwhelmed me on the wave-- But that you live, I pray you give My bleaching bones a grave! Oh, then when cruel tempests rage You all unharmed shall be-- Jove's mighty hand shall guard by land And Neptune's on the sea. Perchance you fear to do what shall Bring evil to your race. Or, rather fear that like me here You'll lack a burial place. So, though you be in proper haste, Bide long enough I pray, To give me, friend, what boon will send My soul upon its way!

Young Jockey.

John Hartley

Young Jockey he bowt him a pair o' new shooin, Ooin, ooin, ry diddle dooin! Young Jockey he bowt him a pair o' new shooin, For he'd made up his mind he'd be wed varry sooin; An he went to ax Jenny his wife for to be, But shoo sed, "Nay, aw'll ne'er wed a hawbuck like thee, Thi legs luk too lanky, Thi heead is too cranky, Its better bi th' hawf an old maid aw should dee!" Young Jockey then went an he bowt him a gun, Un, un, ry diddle dun! Young Jockey then went an he bowt him a gun, For his ivvery hooap i' this wide world wor done; An he went an tell'd Jenny, to end all his pains, He'd made up his mind 'at he'd blow aght his brains, But shoo cared net a pin, An shoo sed wi' a grin, - "Befoor they're blown aght tha man get some put in."

Young Jessica.

Thomas Moore

Young Jessica sat all the day, With heart o'er idle love-thoughts pining; Her needle bright beside her lay, So active once!--now idly shining. Ah, Jessy, 'tis in idle hearts That love and mischief are most nimble; The safest shield against the darts Of Cupid is Minerva's thimble. The child who with a magnet plays Well knowing all its arts, so wily, The tempter near a needle lays. And laughing says, "We'll steal it slily." The needle, having naught to do, Is pleased to let the magnet wheedle; Till closer, closer come the two, And--off, at length, elopes the needle. Now, had this needle turned its eye To some gay reticule's construction, It ne'er had strayed from duty's tie, Nor felt the magnet's sly seduction. Thus, girls, would you keep quiet hearts, Your snowy fingers must be nimble; The safest shield against the darts Of Cupid is Minerva's thimble.

Th' Lesser Evil.

John Hartley

Young Harry wor a single chap, An wod have lots o' tin, An monny a lass had set her cap, This temptin prize to win. But Harry didn't want a wife, He'd rayther far be free; An soa escape all care an strife 'At wedded couples see. But when at last his uncle deed, An left him all his brass, 'Twor on condition he should wed, Some honest Yorksher lass. Soa all his dreamin day an neet Abaat what sprees he'd have; He had to bury aght o'th' seet, Deep in his uncle's grave. To tak a wife at once, he thowt Wor th' wisest thing to do, Soa he lukt raand until he browt His choice daan between two. One wor a big, fine, strappin lass, Her name wor Sarah Ann, Her height an weight, few could surpass, Shoo'r fit for onny man. An t'other wor a little sprite, Wi' lots o' bonny ways, An little funny antics, like A kitten when it plays. An which to tak he could'nt tell, He rayther liked 'em booath; But if he could ha pleased hissen, To wed one he'd be looath. A wife he thowt an evil thing, An sewer to prove a pest; Soa after sometime studyin He thowt th' least wod be th' best. They sooin wor wed, an then he faand He'd quite enuff to do, For A'a! shoo wor a twazzy haand, An tongue enuff for two. An if he went aght neet or day, His wife shoo went as weel; He gat noa chonce to goa astray; - Shoo kept him true as steel. His face grew white, his heead grew bald, His clooas hung on his rig, He grew like one 'at's getten stall'd, Ov this world's whirligig. One day, he muttered to hissen, "If aw've pickt th' lesser evil, Th' poor chap 'at tackles Sarah Ann, Will wish he'd wed the D - -l."

My Old Friend

James Whitcomb Riley

You've a manner all so mellow, My old friend, That it cheers and warms a fellow, My old friend, Just to meet and greet you, and Feel the pressure of a hand That one may understand, My old friend. Though dimmed in youthful splendor, My old friend, Your smiles are still as tender, My old friend, And your eyes as true a blue As your childhood ever knew, And your laugh as merry, too, My old friend. For though your hair is faded, My old friend, And your step a trifle jaded, My old friend, Old Time, with all his lures In the trophies he secures, Leaves young that heart of yours, My old friend. And so it is you cheer me, My old friend, For to know you still are near me, My old friend, Makes my hopes of clearer light, And my faith of surer sight, And my soul a purer white, My old friend.

Billy Bumble's Bargain.

John Hartley

Young Billy Bumble bowt a pig, Soa aw've heeard th' neighbors say; An monny a mile he had to trig One sweltin' summer day; But Billy didn't care a fig, He sed he'd mak it pay; He knew it wor a bargain, An he cared net who said nay. He browt it hooam to Ploo Croft loin, But what wor his surprise To find all th' neighbors standing aght, We oppen maaths an eyes; "By gow!" sed Billy, to hissen, "This pig must be a prize!" An th' wimmen cried, "Gooid gracious fowk But isn't it a size?" Then th' chaps sed, "Billy, where's ta been? Whativver has ta browt? That surely isn't crayture, lad, Aw heeard 'em say tha'd bowt? It luks moor like a donkey, Does ta think 'at it con rawt?" But Billy crack'd his carter's whip. An answered 'em wi' nowt. An reight enuff it wor a pig, If all they say is true, Its length wor five foot eight or nine, Its height wor four foot two; An when it coom to th' pig hoil door, He couldn't get it throo, Unless it went daan ov its knees, An that it wodn't do. Then Billy's mother coom to help, An hit it wi' a mop; But thear it wor, an thear it seem'd Detarmined it 'ud stop; But all at once it gave a grunt, An oppen'd sich a shop; An finding aght 'at it wor lick'd, It laup'd cleean ovver th' top. His mother then shoo shook her heead, An pool'd a woeful face; "William," shoo sed, "tha should'nt bring Sich things as theas to th' place. Aw hooap tha art'nt gooin to sink Thi mother i' disgrace; But if tha buys sich things as thease Aw'm feared it will be th' case!" "Nah, mother, nivver freat," sed Bill, "Its one aw'm gooin to feed, Its rayther long i'th' legs, aw know, But that's becoss o'th' breed; If its a trifle long i'th' grooin, Why hang it! nivver heed! Aw know its net a beauty, But its cheap, it is, indeed!" "Well time 'ul try," his mother sed, - An time at last did try; For nivver sich a hungry beeast Had been fed in a sty. "What's th' weight o'th' long legged pig, Billy!" Wor th' neighbors' daily cry; "Aw connot tell yo yet," sed Bill, "Aw'll weigh it bye an bye." An hard poor Billy persevered, But all to noa avail, It swallow'd all th' mait it could get, An wod ha swallow'd th' pail; But Billy tuk gooid care to stand O'th' tother side o'th' rail; But fat it didn't gain as mich As what 'ud greeas its tail. Pack after pack o' mail he bowt, Until he'd bowt fourteen; But net a bit o' difference I'th' pig wor to be seen: Its legs an snowt wor just as long As ivver they had been; Poor Billy caanted rib bi rib An heaved a sigh between. One day he mix'd a double feed, An put it into th' troff; "Tha greedy lukkin beeast," he sed, "Aw'll awther stawl thee off, Or else aw'll brust thi hide - that is Unless 'at its to toff!" An then he left it wol he went His mucky clooas to doff. It worn't long befoor he coom To see hah matters stood; He luk'd at th' troff, an thear it wor, Five simple bits o' wood, As cleean scraped aght as if it had Ne'er held a bit o' food; "Tha slotch!" sed Bill, "aw do believe Tha'd ait me if tha could." Next day he browt a butcher, For his patience had been tried, An wi a varry deeal to do, Its legs wi' rooap they tied; An then his shinin knife he drew An stuck it in its side - It mud ha been a crockadile, Bi th' thickness ov its hide. But blooid began to flow, an then Its long legg'd race wor run; They scalded, scraped, an hung it up, An when it all wor done, Fowk coom to guess what weight it wor, An monny a bit o' fun They had, for Billy's mother sed, "It ought to weigh a ton." Billy wor walkin up an daan, Dooin nowt but fume an fidge! He luk'd at th' pig - then daan he set, I'th nook o'th' window ledge, He saw th' back booan wor stickin aght, Like th' thin end ov a wedge; It luk'd like an owd blanket Hung ovver th' winterhedge. His mother rooar'd an th' wimmen sigh'd, But th' chaps did nowt but laff; Poor Billy he could hardly bide, To sit an hear ther chaff - Then up he jumped, an off he run, But whear fowk nivver knew; An what wor th' war'st, when mornin coom, Th' deead pig had mizzled too. Th' chaps wander'd th' country far an near, Until they stall'd thersen; But nawther Billy nor his pig Coom hooam agean sin then; But oft fowk say, i'th' deead o'th' neet, Near Shibden's ruined mill, The gooast o' Billy an his pig May be seen runnin still. MORAL. Yo fowk 'at's tempted to goa buy Be careful what yo do; Dooant be persuaded 'coss "it's cheap," For if yo do yo'll rue; Dooant think its lowerin to yor sen To ax a friend's advice, Else like poor Billy's pig, 't may be Bowt dear at onny price.

Love And Truth.

Charles Sangster

Young Love sat in a rosy bower, Towards the close of a summer day; At the evening's dusky hour, Truth bent her blessed steps that way; Over her face Beaming a grace Never bestowed on child of clay. Truth looked on with an ardent joy, Wondering Love could grow so tired; Hovering o'er him she kissed the boy, When, with a sudden impulse fired, Exquisite pains Burning his veins, Wildly he woke, as one inspired. Eagerly Truth embraced the god, Filling his soul with a sense divine; Rightly he knew the paths she trod, Springing from heaven's royal line; Far had he strayed From his guardian maid, Perilling all for his rash design. Still as they went, the tricksy youth Wandered afar from the maiden fair; Many a plot he laid, in sooth, Wherein the maid could have no share Sowing his seeds, Bringing forth weeds, Seldom a rose, and many a tare. Save when the maiden was by his side, Love was erratic, and rarely true; When she smiled on the graceful bride, Over the old world rose the new, Into life's skies Blending her dyes, Fairer than those of the rainbow's hue. Sunny-eyed maidens, whom Love decoys, Mark well the arts of the wayward youth! Sorrows he bringeth, disguised as joys, Rose-hued delights with cores of ruth; Learn to believe Love will deceive, Save when he comes with his guardian, Truth.

Davie Gellatley's Song

Walter Scott (Sir)

Young men will love thee more fair and more fast; Heard ye so merry the little bird sing? Old men's love the longest will last, And the throstle-cock's head is under his wing. The young man's wrath is like light straw on fire; Heard ye so merry the little bird sing? But like red-hot steel is the old man's ire, And the throstle-cock's head is under his wing. The young man will brawl at the evening board; Heard ye so merry the little bird sing? But the old man will draw at the dawning the sword, And the throstle-cock's head is under his wing.

A Sunrise Song.

Sidney Lanier

Young palmer sun, that to these shining sands Pourest thy pilgrim's tale, discoursing still Thy silver passages of sacred lands, With news of Sepulchre and Dolorous Hill, Canst thou be he that, yester-sunset warm, Purple with Paynim rage and wrack desire, Dashed ravening out of a dusty lair of Storm, Harried the west, and set the world on fire? Hast thou perchance repented, Saracen Sun? Wilt warm the world with peace and dove-desire? Or wilt thou, ere this very day be done, Blaze Saladin still, with unforgiving fire? Baltimore, 1881.

The Wanderer.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

WANDERER. Young woman, may God bless thee, Thee, and the sucking infant Upon thy breast! Let me, 'gainst this rocky wall, Neath the elm-tree's shadow, Lay aside my burden, Near thee take my rest. WOMAN. What vocation leads thee, While the day is burning, Up this dusty path? Bring'st thou goods from out the town Round the country? Smil'st thou, stranger, At my question? WANDERER. From the town no goods I bring. Cool is now the evening; Show to me the fountain 'Whence thou drinkest, Woman young and kind! WOMAN. Up the rocky pathway mount; Go thou first! Across the thicket Leads the pathway tow'rd the cottage That I live in, To the fountain Whence I drink. WANDERER. Signs of man's arranging hand See I 'mid the trees! Not by thee these stones were join'd, Nature, who so freely scatterest! WOMAN. Up, still up! WANDERER. Lo, a mossy architrave is here! I discern thee, fashioning spirit! On the stone thou hast impress'd thy seal. WOMAN. Onward, stranger! WANDERER. Over an inscription am I treading! 'Tis effaced! Ye are seen no longer, Words so deeply graven, Who your master's true devotion Should have shown to thousand grandsons! WOMAN. At these stones, why Start'st thou, stranger? Many stones are lying yonder Round my cottage. WANDERER. Yonder? WOMAN. Through the thicket, Turning to the left, Here! WANDERER. Ye Muses and ye Graces! WOMAN. This, then, is my cottage. WANDERER. 'Tis a ruin'd temple! * WOMAN. Just below it, see, Springs the fountain Whence I drink. WANDERER. Thou dost hover O'er thy grave, all glowing, Genius! while upon thee Hath thy master-piece Fallen crumbling, Thou Immortal One! WOMAN. Stay, a cup I'll fetch thee Whence to drink. WANDERER. Ivy circles thy slender Form so graceful and godlike. How ye rise on high From the ruins, Column-pair And thou, their lonely sister yonder, How thou, Dusky moss upon thy sacred head, Lookest down in mournful majesty On thy brethren's figures Lying scatter'd At thy feet! In the shadow of the bramble Earth and rubbish veil them, Lofty grass is waving o'er them Is it thus thou, Nature, prizest Thy great masterpiece's masterpiece? Carelessly destroyest thou Thine own sanctuary, Sowing thistles there? WOMAN. How the infant sleeps! Wilt thou rest thee in the cottage, Stranger? Wouldst thou rather In the open air still linger? Now 'tis cool! take thou the child While I go and draw some water. Sleep on, darling! sleep! WANDERER. Sweet is thy repose! How, with heaven-born health imbued, Peacefully he slumbers! Oh thou, born among the ruins Spread by great antiquity, On thee rest her spirit! He whom it encircles Will, in godlike consciousness, Ev'ry day enjoy. Full, of germ, unfold, As the smiling springtime's Fairest charm, Outshining all thy fellows! And when the blossom's husk is faded, May the full fruit shoot forth From out thy breast, And ripen in the sunshine! WOMAN. God bless him! Is he sleeping still? To the fresh draught I nought can add, Saving a crust of bread for thee to eat. WANDERER. I thank thee well. How fair the verdure all around! How green! WOMAN. My husband soon Will home return From labour. Tarry, tarry, man, And with us eat our evening meal. WANDERER. Is't here ye dwell? WOMAN. Yonder, within those walls we live. My father 'twas who built the cottage Of tiles and stones from out the ruins. 'Tis here we dwell. He gave me to a husbandman, And in our arms expired. Hast thou been sleeping, dearest heart How lively, and how full of play! Sweet rogue! WANDERER. Nature, thou ever budding one, Thou formest each for life's enjoyments, And, like a mother, all thy children dear, Blessest with that sweet heritage, a home The swallow builds the cornice round, Unconscious of the beauties She plasters up. The caterpillar spins around the bough, To make her brood a winter house; And thou dost patch, between antiquity's Most glorious relics, For thy mean use, Oh man, a humble cot, Enjoyest e'en mid tombs! Farewell, thou happy woman! WOMAN. Thou wilt not stay, then? WANDERER. May God preserve thee, And bless thy boy! WOMAN. A happy journey! WANDERER. Whither conducts the path Across yon hill? WOMAN. To Cuma. WANDERER. How far from hence? WOMAN. 'Tis full three miles. WANDERER. Farewell! Oh Nature, guide me on my way! The wandering stranger guide, Who o'er the tombs Of holy bygone times Is passing, To a kind sheltering place, From North winds safe, And where a poplar grove Shuts out the noontide ray! And when I come Home to my cot At evening, Illumined by the setting sun, Let me embrace a wife like this, Her infant in her arms!

A Dream Within A Dream.

George MacDonald

THE OUTER DREAM. Young, as the day's first-born Titanic brood, Lifting their foreheads jubilant to heaven, Rose the great mountains on my opening dream. And yet the aged peace of countless years Reposed on every crag and precipice Outfacing ruggedly the storms that swept Far overhead the sheltered furrow-vales; Which smiled abroad in green as the clouds broke Drifting adown the tide of the wind-waves, Till shattered on the mountain rocks. Oh! still, And cold and hard to look upon, like men Who do stern deeds in times of turbulence, Quell the hail-rattle with their granite brows, And let the thunder burst and pass away-- They too did gather round sky-dwelling peaks The trailing garments of the travelling sun, Which he had lifted from his ocean-bed, And swept along his road. They rent them down In scattering showers upon the trees and grass, In noontide rains with heavy ringing drops, Or in still twilight moisture tenderly. And from their sides were born the gladsome streams; Some creeping gently out in tiny springs, As they were just created, scarce a foot From the hill's surface, in the matted roots Of plants, whose green betrays the secret birth; Some hurrying forth from caverns deep and dark, Upfilling to the brim a basin huge, Thick covered with soft moss, greening the wave, As evermore it welled over the edge Upon the rocks below in boiling heaps; Fit basin for a demi-god at morn, Waking amid the crags, to lave his limbs, Then stride, Hyperion, o'er sun-paven peaks. And down the hill-side sped the fresh-born wave, Now hid from sight in arched caverns cold, Now arrowing slantwise down the terraced steep, Now springing like a child from step to step Of the rough water-stair; until it found A deep-hewn passage for its slower course, Guiding it down to lowliness and rest, Betwixt wet walls of darkness, darker yet With pine trees lining all their sides like hair, Or as their own straight needles clothe their boughs; Until at length in broader light it ran, With more articulate sounds amid the stones, In the slight shadow of the maiden birch, And the stream-loving willow; and ere long Great blossoming trees dropt flowers upon its breast; Chiefly the crimson-spotted, cream-white flowers, Heaped up in cones amid cone-drooping leaves; Green hanging leaf-cones, towering white flower-cones Upon the great cone-fashioned chestnut tree. Each made a tiny ripple where it fell, The trembling pleasure of the smiling wave, Which bore it then, in slow funereal course, Down to the outspread sunny sheen, where lies The lake uplooking to the far-off snow, Its mother still, though now so far away; Feeding it still with long descending lines Of shining, speeding streams, that gather peace In journeying to the rest of that still lake Now lying sleepy in the warm red sun, Which says its dear goodnight, and goeth down. All pale, and withered, and disconsolate, The moon is looking on impatiently; For 'twixt the shining tent-roof of the day, And the sun-deluged lake, for mirror-floor, Her thin pale lamping is too sadly grey To shoot, in silver-barbed, white-plumed arrows, Cold maiden splendours on the flashing fish: Wait for thy empire Night, day-weary moon! And thou shalt lord it in one realm at least, Where two souls walk a single Paradise. Take to thee courage, for the sun is gone; His praisers, the glad birds, have hid their heads; Long, ghost-like forms of trees lie on the grass; All things are clothed in an obscuring light, Fusing their outline in a dreamy mass; Some faint, dim shadows from thy beauty fall On the clear lake which melts them half away-- Shine faster, stronger, O reviving moon! Burn up, O lamp of Earth, hung high in Heaven! And through a warm thin summer mist she shines, A silver setting to the diamond stars; And the dark boat cleaveth a glittering way, Where the one steady beauty of the moon Makes many changing beauties on the wave Broken by jewel-dropping oars, which drive The boat, as human impulses the soul; While, like the sovereign will, the helm's firm law Directs the whither of the onward force. At length midway he leaves the swaying oars Half floating in the blue gulf underneath, And on a load of gathered flowers reclines, Leaving the boat to any air that blows, His soul to any pulse from the unseen heart. Straight from the helm a white hand gleaming flits, And settles on his face, and nestles there, Pale, night-belated butterfly, to sleep. For on her knees his head lies satisfied; And upward, downward, dark eyes look and rest, Finding their home in likeness.    Lifting then Her hair upon her white arm heavily, The overflowing of her beauteousness, Her hand that cannot trespass, singles out Some of the curls that stray across her lap; And mingling dark locks in the pallid light, She asks him which is darker of the twain, Which his, which hers, and laugheth like a lute. But now her hair, an unvexed cataract, Falls dark and heavy round his upturned face, And with a heaven shuts out the shallow sky, A heaven profound, the home of two black stars; Till, tired with gazing, face to face they lie, Suspended, with closed eyelids, in the night; Their bodies bathed in conscious sleepiness, While o'er their souls creeps every rippling breath Of the night-gambols of the moth-winged wind, Flitting a handbreadth, folding up its wings, Its dreamy wings, then spreading them anew, And with an unfelt gliding, like the years, Wafting them to a water-lily bed, Whose shield-like leaves and chalice-bearing arms Hold back the boat from the slow-sloping shore, Far as a child might shoot with his toy-bow. There the long drooping grass drooped to the wave; And, ever as the moth-wind lit thereon, A small-leafed tree, whose roots were always cool, Dipped one low bow, with many sister-leaves, Upon the water's face with a low plash, Lifting and dipping yet and yet again; And aye the water-drops rained from the leaves, With music-laughter as they found their home. And from the woods came blossom-fragrance, faint, Or full, like rising, falling harmonies; Luxuriance of life, which overflows In scents ethereal on the ocean air; Each breathing on the rest the blessedness Of its peculiar being, filled with good Till its cup runneth over with delight: They drank the mingled odours as they lay, The air in which the sensuous being breathes, Till summer-sleep fell on their hearts and eyes. The night was mild and innocent of ill; 'Twas but a sleeping day that breathed low, And babbled in its sleep. The moon at length Grew sleepy too. Her level glances crept Through sleeping branches to their curtained eyes, As down the steep bank of the west she slid, Slowly and slowly But alas! alas! The awful time 'twixt moondown and sunrise! It is a ghostly time. A low thick fog Steamed up and swathed the trees, and overwhelmed The floating couch with pall on pall of grey. The sky was desolate, dull, and meaningless. The blazing hues of the last sunset eve, And the pale magic moonshine that had made The common, strange,--all were swept clean away; The earth around, the great sky over, were Like a deserted theatre, tomb-dumb; The lights long dead; the first sick grey of morn Oozing through rents in the slow-mouldering curtain; The sweet sounds fled away for evermore; Nought left, except a creeping chill, a sense As if dead deeds were strown upon the stage, As if dead bodies simulated life, And spoke dead words without informing thought. A horror, as of power without a soul, Dark, undefined, and mighty unto ill, Jarred through the earth and through the vault-like air. And on the sleepers fell a wondrous dream, That dured till sunrise, filling all the cells Remotest of the throbbing heart and brain. And as I watched them, ever and anon The quivering limb and half-unclos'd eye Witnessed of torture scarce endured, and yet Endured; for still the dream had mastery, And held them in a helplessness supine; Till, by degrees, the labouring breath grew calm, Save frequent murmured sighs; and o'er each face Stole radiant sadness, and a hopeful grief; And the convulsive motion passed away. Upon their faces, reading them, I gazed,-- Reading them earnestly, like wondrous book,-- When suddenly the vapours of the dream Rose and enveloped me, and through my soul Passed with possession; will fell fast asleep. And through the portals of the spirit-land, Upon whose frontiers time and space grow dumb, Quenched like a cloud that all the roaring wind Drives not beyond the mountain top, I went, And entering, beheld them in their dream. Their world inwrapt me for the time as mine, And what befel them there, I saw, and tell. THE INNER DREAM. It was a drizzly morning where I stood. The cloud had sunk, and filled with fold on fold The chimneyed city; so the smoke rose not, But spread diluted in the cloud, and fell A black precipitate on miry streets, Where dim grey faces vision-like went by, But half-awake, half satisfied with sleep. Slave engines had begun their ceaseless growl Of labour. Iron bands and huge stone blocks That held them to their task, strained, shook, until The city trembled. Those pale-visaged forms Were hastening on to feed their groaning strength With labour to the full. Look! there they come, Poor amid poverty; she with her gown Drawn over her meek head; he trying much, But fruitless half, to shield her from the rain. They enter the wide gates, amid the jar, And clash, and shudder of the awful force That, conquering force, still vibrates on, as if With an excess of power, hungry for work. With differing strength to different tasks they part, To be the soul of knowledge unto strength; For man has eked his body out with wheels, And cranks, and belts, and levers, pinions, screws-- One body all, pervaded still with life From man the maker's will. 'Mid keen-eyed men, Thin featured and exact, his part is found; Hers where the dusk air shines with lustrous eyes. And there they laboured through the murky day, Whose air was livid mist, their only breath; Foul floating dust of swift revolving wheels And feathery spoil of fast contorted threads Making a sultry chaos in the sun. Until at length slow swelled the welcome dark, A dull Lethean heaving tide of death, Up from the caves of Night to make an end; And filling every corner of the place, Choked in its waves the clanking of the looms. And Earth put on her sleeping dress, and took Her children home into its bosom-folds, And nursed them as a mother-ghost might sit With her neglected darlings in the dark. So with dim satisfaction in their hearts, Though with tired feet and aching head, they went, Parting the clinging fog to find their home. It was a dreary place. Unfinished walls, Far drearier than ruins overspread With long-worn sweet forgetfulness, amidst Earth-heaps and bricks, rain-pools and ugliness, Rose up around, banishing further yet The Earth, with its spring-time, young-mother smile, From children's eyes that had forgot to play. But though the house was dull and wrapt in fog, It yet awoke to life, yea, cheerfulness, When darkness oped a fire-eye in the grate, And the dim candle's smoky flame revealed A room which could not be all desolate, Being a temple, proven by the signs Seen in the ancient place. For here was light; And blazing fire with darkness on its skirts; Bread; and pure water, ready to make clean, Beside a chest of holiday attire; And in the twilight edges of the light, A book scarce seen; and for the wondrous veil, Those human forms, behind which lay concealed The Holy of Holies, God's own secret place, The lowly human heart wherein He dwells. And by the table-altar they sat down To eat their Eucharist, God feeding them: Their food was Love, made visible in Form-- Incarnate Love in food. For he to whom A common meal can be no Eucharist, Who thanks for food and strength, not for the love That made cold water for its blessedness, And wine for gladness' sake, has yet to learn The heart-delight of inmost thankfulness For innermost reception. Then they sat Resting with silence, the soul's inward sleep, Which feedeth it with strength; till gradually They grew aware of light, that overcame The light within, and through the dingy blind, Cast from the window-frame, two shadow-glooms That made a cross of darkness on the white, Dark messenger of light itself unseen. The woman rose, and half she put aside The veil that hid the whole of glorious night; And lo! a wind had mowed the earth-sprung fog; And lo! on high the white exultant moon From clear blue window curtained all with white, Greeted them, at their shadowy window low, With quiet smile; for two things made her glad: One that she saw the glory of the sun; For while the earth lay all athirst for light, She drank the fountain-waves. The other joy; Sprung from herself: she fought the darkness well, Thinning the great cone-shadow of the earth, Paling its ebon hue with radiant showers Upon its sloping side. The woman said, With hopeful look: "To-morrow will be bright With sunshine for our holiday--to-morrow-- Think! we shall see the green fields in the sun." So with hearts hoping for a simple joy, Yet high withal, being no less than the sun, They laid them down in nightly death that waits Patiently for the day. That sun was high When they awoke at length. The moon, low down, Had almost vanished, clothed upon with light; And night was swallowed up of day. In haste, Chiding their weariness that leagued with sleep, They, having clothed themselves in clean attire, By the low door, stooping with priestly hearts, Entered God's vision-room, his wonder-world. One side the street, the windows all were moons To light the other that in shadow lay. The path was almost dry; the wind asleep. And down the sunny side a woman came In a red cloak that made the whole street glad-- Fit clothing, though she was so feeble and old; For when they stopped and asked her how she fared, She said with cheerful words, and smile that owed None of its sweetness to an ivory lining: "I'm always better in the open air." "Dear heart!" said they, "how freely she will breathe In the open air of heaven!" She stood in the morn Like a belated autumn-flower in spring, Dazed by the rushing of the new-born life Up the earth's winding cavern-stairs to see Through window-buds the calling, waking sun. Or as in dreams we meet the ghost of one Beloved in youth, who walketh with few words, And they are of the past. Yet, joy to her! She too from earthy grave was climbing up Unto the spirit-windows high and far, She the new life for a celestial spring, Answering the light that shineth evermore. With hopeful sadness thus they passed along Dissolving streets towards the smiles of spring, Of which green visions gleamed and glided by, Across far-narrowing avenues of brick: The ripples only of her laughter float Through the low winding caverns of the town; Yet not a stone upon the paven street, But shareth in the impulse of her joy, Heaven's life that thrills anew through the outworn earth; Descending like the angel that did stir Bethesda's pool, and made the sleepy wave Pulse with quick healing through the withered limb, In joyous pangs. By an unfinished street, Forth came they on a wide and level space; Green fields lay side by side, and hedgerow trees Stood here and there as waiting for some good. But no calm river meditated through The weary flat to the less level sea; No forest trees on pillared stems and boughs Bent in great Gothic arches, bore aloft A cloudy temple-roof of tremulous leaves; No clear line where the kissing lips of sky And earth meet undulating, but a haze That hides--oh, if it hid wild waves! alas! It hides but fields, it hides but fields and trees! Save eastward, where a few hills, far away, Came forth in the sun, or drew back when the clouds Went over them, dissolving them in shade. But the life-robe of earth was beautiful, As all most common things are loveliest; A forest of green waving fairy trees, That carpeted the earth for lowly feet, Bending unto their tread, lowliest of all Earth's lowly children born for ministering Unto the heavenly stranger, stately man; That he, by subtle service from all kinds, From every breeze and every bounding wave, From night-sky cavernous with heaps of storm, And from the hill rejoicing in the sun, Might grow a humble, lowly child of God; Lowly, as knowing his high parentage; Humble, because all beauties wait on him, Like lady-servants ministering for love. And he that hath not rock, and hill, and stream, Must learn to look for other beauty near; To know the face of ocean solitudes, The darkness dashed with glory, and the shades Wind-fretted, and the mingled tints upthrown From shallow bed, or raining from the sky. And he that hath not ocean, and dwells low, Not hill-befriended, if his eyes have ceased To drink enjoyment from the billowy grass, And from the road-side flower (like one who dwells With homely features round him every day, And so takes refuge in the loving eyes Which are their heaven, the dwelling-place of light), Must straightway lift his eyes unto the heavens, Like God's great palette, where His artist hand Never can strike the brush, but beauty wakes; Vast sweepy comet-curves, that net the soul In pleasure; endless sky-stairs; patient clouds, White till they blush at the sun's goodnight kiss; And filmy pallours, and great mountain crags. But beyond all, absorbing all the rest, Lies the great heaven, the expression of deep space, Foreshortened to a vaulted dome of blue; The Infinite, crowded in a single glance, Where yet the eye descends depth within depth; Like mystery of Truth, clothed in high form, Evasive, spiritual, no limiting, But something that denies an end, and yet Can be beheld by wondering human eyes. There looking up, one well may feel how vain To search for God in this vast wilderness! For over him would arch void depth for ever; Nor ever would he find a God or Heaven, Though lifting wings were his to soar abroad Through boundless heights of space; or eyes to dive To microscopic depths: he would come back, And say, There is no God; and sit and weep; Till in his heart a child's voice woke and cried, Father! my Father! Then the face of God Breaks forth with eyes, everywhere, suddenly And not a space of blue, nor floating cloud, Nor grassy vale, nor distant purple height, But, trembling with a presence all divine, Says, Here I am, my child. Gazing awhile, They let the lesson of the sky sink deep Into their hearts; withdrawing then their eyes, They knew the Earth again. And as they went, Oft in the changing heavens, those distant hills Shone clear upon the horizon. Then awoke A strange and unknown longing in their souls, As if for something loved in years gone by, And vanished in its beauty and its love So long, that it retained no name or form, And lay on childhood's verge, all but forgot, Wrapt in the enchanted rose-mists of that land: As if amidst those hills were wooded dells, Summer, and gentle winds, and odours free, Deep sleeping waters, gorgeous flowers, and birds, Pure winged throats. But here, all things around Were in their spring. The very light that lay Upon the grass seemed new-born like the grass, Sprung with it from the earth. The very stones Looked warm. The brown ploughed earth seemed swelling up, Filled like a sponge with sunbeams, which lay still, Nestling unseen, and broodingly, and warm, In every little nest, corner, or crack, Wherein might hide a blind and sleepy seed, Waiting the touch of penetrative life To wake, and grow, and beautify the earth. The mossy stems and boughs, where yet no life Exuberant overflowed in buds and leaves, Were clothed in golden splendours, interwoven With many shadows from the branches bare. And through their tops the west wind rushing went, Calling aloud the sleeping sap within: The thrill passed downwards from the roots in air To the roots tremulous in the embracing ground. And though no buds with little dots of light Sparkled the darkness of the hedgerow twigs; Softening, expanding in the warm light-bath, Seemed the dry smoky bark. Thus in the fields They spent their holiday. And when the sun Was near the going down, they turned them home With strengthened hearts. For they were filled with light, And with the spring; and, like the bees, went back To their dark house, laden with blessed sights, With gladsome sounds home to their treasure-cave; Where henceforth sudden gleams of spring would pass Thorough the four-walled darkness of the room; And sounds of spring-time whisper trembling by, Though stony streets with iron echoed round. And as they crossed a field, they came by chance Upon a place where once a home had been; Fragments of ruined walls, half-overgrown With moss, for even stones had their green robe. It had been a small cottage, with a plot Of garden-ground in front, mapped out with walks Now scarce discernible, but that the grass Was thinner, the ground harder to the foot: The place was simply shadowed with an old Almost erased human carefulness. Close by the ruined wall, where once had been The door dividing it from the great world, Making it home, a single snowdrop grew. 'Twas the sole remnant of a family Of flowers that in this garden once had dwelt, Vanished with all their hues of glowing life, Save one too white for death. And as its form Arose within the brain, a feeling sprung Up in their souls, new, white, and delicate; A waiting, longing, patient hopefulness, The snowdrop of the heart. The heavenly child, Pale with the earthly cold, hung its meek head, Enduring all, and so victorious; The Summer's earnest in the waking Earth, The spirit's in the heart. I love thee, flower, With a love almost human, tenderly; The Spring's first child, yea, thine, my hoping heart! Upon thy inner leaves and in thy heart, Enough of green to tell thou know'st the grass; In thy white mind remembering lowly friends; But most I love thee for that little stain Of earth on thy transfigured radiancy, Which thou hast lifted with thee from thy grave, The soiling of thy garments on thy road, Travelling forth into the light and air, The heaven of thy pure rest. Some gentle rain Will surely wash thee white, and send the earth Back to the place of earth; but now it signs Thee child of earth, of human birth as we. With careful hands uprooting it, they bore The little plant a willing captive home; Willing to enter dark abodes, secure In its own tale of light. As once of old, Bearing all heaven in words of promising, The Angel of the Annunciation came, It carried all the spring into that house; A pot of mould its only tie to Earth, Its heaven an ell of blue 'twixt chimney-tops, Its world henceforth that little, low-ceiled room, Symbol and child of spring, it took its place 'Midst all those types, to be a type with them, Of what so many feel, not knowing it; The hidden springtime that is drawing nigh. And henceforth, when the shadow of the cross Will enter, clothed in moonlight, still and dark, The flower will nestle at its foot till day, Pale, drooping, heart-content. To rest they went. And all night long the snowdrop glimmered white Amid the dark, unconscious and unseen. Before the sun had crowned his eastern hill With its world-diadem, they woke. I looked Out of the windows of the inner dream, And saw the edge of the sun's glory rise Eastward behind the hills, the lake-cup's rim. And as it came, it sucked up in itself, As deeds drink words, or daylight candle-flame, That other sun rising to light the dream. They lay awake and thoughtful, comforted With yesterday which nested in their hearts, Yet haunted with the sound of grinding wheels. THE OUTER DREAM. And as they lay and looked into the room, It wavered, changed, dissolved beneath the sun, Which mingled both the mornings in their eyes, Till the true conquered, and the unreal passed. No walls, but woods bathed in a level sun; No ceiling, but the vestal sky of morn; No bed, but flowers floating 'mid floating leaves On water which grew audible as they stirred And lifted up their heads. And a low wind That flowed from out the west, washed from their eye The last films of the dream. And they sat up, Silent for one long cool delicious breath, Gazing upon each other lost and found, With a dumb ecstasy, new, undefined. Followed a long embrace, and then the oars Broke up their prison-bands. And through the woods They slowly went, beneath a firmament Of boughs, and clouded leaves, filmy and pale In the sunshine, but shadowy on the grass. And roving odours met them on their way, Sun-quickened odours, which the fog had slain. And their green sky had many a blossom-moon, And constellations thick with starry flowers. And deep and still were all the woods, except For the Memnonian, glory-stricken birds; And golden beetles 'mid the shadowy roots, Green goblins of the grass, and mining mice; And on the leaves the fairy butterflies, Or doubting in the air, scarlet and blue. The divine depth of summer clasped the Earth. But 'twixt their hearts and summer's perfectness Came a dividing thought that seemed to say: "Ye wear strange looks." Did summer speak, or they? They said within: "We know that ye are fair, Bright flowers; but ye shine far away, as in A land of other thoughts. Alas! alas! "Where shall we find the snowdrop-bell half-blown? What shall we do? we feel the throbbing spring Bursting in new and unexpressive thoughts; Our hearts are swelling like a tied-up bud, And summer crushes them with too much light. Action is bubbling up within our souls; The woods oppress us more than stony streets; That was the life indeed; this is the dream; Summer is too complete for growing hearts; They need a broken season, and a land With shadows pointing ever far away; Where incompleteness rouses longing thoughts With spires abrupt, and broken spheres, and circles Cut that they may be widened evermore: Through shattered cloudy roof, looks in the sky, A discord from a loftier harmony; And tempests waken peace within our thoughts, Driving them inward to the inmost rest. Come, my beloved, we will haste and go To those pale faces of our fellow men; Our loving hearts, burning with summer-fire, Will cast a glow upon their pallidness; Our hands will help them, far as servants may; Hands are apostles still to saviour-hearts. So we may share their blessedness with them; So may the snowdrop time be likewise ours; And Earth smile tearfully the spirit smile Wherewith she smiled upon our holiday, As a sweet child may laugh with weeping eyes. If ever we return, these glorious flowers May all be snowdrops of a higher spring." Their eyes one moment met, and then they knew That they did mean the same thing in their hearts. So with no farther words they turned and went Back to the boat, and so across the mere. I wake from out my dream, and know my room, My darling books, the cherub forms above; I know 'tis springtime in the world without; I feel it springtime in my world within; I know that bending o'er an early flower, Crocus, or primrose, or anemone, The heart that striveth for a higher life, And hath not yet been conquered, findeth there A beauty deep, unshared by any rose, A human loveliness about the flower; That a heath-bell upon a lonely waste Hath more than scarlet splendour on thick leaves; That a blue opening 'midst rain-bosomed clouds Is more than Paphian sun-set harmonies; That higher beauty dwells on earth, because Man seeks a higher home than Paradise; And, having lost, is roused thereby to fill A deeper need than could be filled by all The lost ten times restored; and so he loves The snowdrop more than the magnolia; Spring-hope is more to him than summer-joy; Dark towns than Eden-groves with rivers four.

To She Who Is Too Light-Hearted

Charles Baudelaire

Your head, your gesture, your air, are lovely, like a lovely landscape: laughter's alive, in your face, a fresh breeze in a clear atmosphere. The dour passer-by you brush past there, is dazzled by health in flight, flashing like a brilliant light from your arms and shoulders. The resounding colours with which you sprinkle your dress, inspire the spirits of poets with thoughts of dancing flowers. Those wild clothes are the emblem of your brightly-hued mind: madcap by whom I'm terrified, I hate you, and love you, the same! Sometimes in a lovely garden where I trailed my listlessness, I've felt the sunlight sear my breast like some ironic weapon: and Spring's green presence brought such humiliation I've levied retribution on a flower, for Nature's insolence. So through some night, when the hour of sensual pleasure sounds, I'd like to slink, mute coward, bound for your body's treasure, to bruise your sorry breast, to punish your joyful flesh, form in your startled side, a fresh wound's yawning depth, and breath-taking rapture! through those lips, new and full more vivid and more beautiful infuse my venom, my sister!

A Valentine

Eugene Field

Your gran'ma, in her youth, was quite As blithe a little maid as you. And, though her hair is snowy white, Her eyes still have their maiden blue, And on her cheeks, as fair as thine, Methinks a girlish blush would glow If she recalled the valentine She got, ah! many years ago. A valorous youth loved gran'ma then, And wooed her in that auld lang syne; And first he told his secret when He sent the maid that valentine. No perfumed page nor sheet of gold Was that first hint of love he sent, But with the secret gran'pa told-- "I love you"--gran'ma was content. Go, ask your gran'ma, if you will, If--though her head be bowed and gray-- If--though her feeble pulse be chill-- True love abideth not for aye; By that quaint portrait on the wall, That smiles upon her from above, Methinks your gran'ma can recall The sweet divinity of love. Dear Elsie, here's no page of gold-- No sheet embossed with cunning art-- But here's a solemn pledge of old: "I love you, love, with all my heart." And if in what I send you here You read not all of love expressed, Go--go to gran'ma, Elsie dear, And she will tell you all the rest!

Our Home - Our Country

Oliver Wendell Holmes

For The Semi-Centennial Celebration Of The Settlement Of Cambridge, Mass., December 28, 1880 Your home was mine, - kind Nature's gift; My love no years can chill; In vain their flakes the storm-winds sift, The snow-drop hides beneath the drift, A living blossom still. Mute are a hundred long-famed lyres, Hushed all their golden strings; One lay the coldest bosom fires, One song, one only, never tires While sweet-voiced memory sings. No spot so lone but echo knows That dear familiar strain; In tropic isles, on arctic snows, Through burning lips its music flows And rings its fond refrain. From Pisa's tower my straining sight Roamed wandering leagues away, When lo! a frigate's banner bright, The starry blue, the red, the white, In far Livorno's bay. Hot leaps the life-blood from my heart, Forth springs the sudden tear; The ship that rocks by yonder mart Is of my land, my life, a part, - Home, home, sweet home, is here! Fades from my view the sunlit scene, - My vision spans the waves; I see the elm-encircled green, The tower, - the steeple, - and, between, The field of ancient graves. There runs the path my feet would tread When first they learned to stray; There stands the gambrel roof that spread Its quaint old angles o'er my head When first I saw the day. The sounds that met my boyish ear My inward sense salute, - The woodnotes wild I loved to hear, - The robin's challenge, sharp and clear, - The breath of evening's flute. The faces loved from cradle days, - Unseen, alas, how long! As fond remembrance round them plays, Touched with its softening moonlight rays, Through fancy's portal throng. And see! as if the opening skies Some angel form had spared Us wingless mortals to surprise, The little maid with light-blue eyes, White necked and golden haired! . . . . . . . . . . So rose the picture full in view I paint in feebler song; Such power the seamless banner knew Of red and white and starry blue For exiles banished long. Oh, boys, dear boys, who wait as men To guard its heaven-bright folds, Blest are the eyes that see again That banner, seamless now, as then, - The fairest earth beholds! Sweet was the Tuscan air and soft In that unfading hour, And fancy leads my footsteps oft Up the round galleries, high aloft On Pisa's threatening tower. And still in Memory's holiest shrine I read with pride and joy, "For me those stars of empire shine; That empire's dearest home is mine; I am a Cambridge boy!"

Young Love

Richard Le Gallienne

Young love, all rainbows in the lane, Brushed by the honeysuckle vines, Scattered the wild rose in a dream: A sweeter thing his arm entwines. Ah, redder lips than any rose! Ah, sweeter breath than any bee Sucks from the heart of any flower; Ah, bosom like the Summer sea! A fairy creature made of dew And moonrise and the songs of birds, And laughter like the running brook, And little soft, heart-broken words. Haunted as marble in the moon, Her whiteness lies on young love's breast. And living frankincense and myrrh Her lips that on his lips are pressed. Her eyes are lost within his eyes, His eyes in hers are fathoms deep; Death is not stiller than these twain That smile as in a magic sleep. I heard him say as they went by, Two human flowers in the dew: "Darling, ah, God, if you should die, You know, that moment I die, too." I heard her say: "I could not live An hour without you"; heard her say: "My life is in your hands to keep, To keep, or just to throw away." I heard him say: "For just us two The world was made, the stars above Move in their orbits, to this end: That you and I should meet and love." I heard her say: "And God himself Has us in keeping, heart to heart; In his great book our names are writ - The Book of Those that Never Part." "How strange it is!" I heard him say; "How strange!" and yet again, "How strange! To meet at last, and know this love Of ours can never fade or change." "How strange to think that you are mine, Each little hair of your dear head, And no one else's in the world - How strange it is!" the woman said. I stand aside to let them pass, My Autumn face they never see; Their eyes are on the rising sun, But 'tis the setting sun for me. For me no wild rose in the lane, But only sad autumnal flowers, And falling shadows and old sighs, And melancholy drift of hours!