Betrayal

The tropic day's redundant charms
    Cool twilight soothes away,
The sun slips down behind the palms
    And leaves the landscape grey.
    I want to take you in my arms
    And kiss your lips away!

I wake with sunshine in my eyes
    And find the morning blue,
A night of dreams behind me lies
    And all were dreams of you!
    Ah, how I wish the while I rise,
    That what I dream were true.

The weary day's laborious pace,
    I hasten and beguile
By fancies, which I backwards trace
    To things I loved erstwhile;
    The weary sweetness of your face,
    Your faint, illusive smile.

The silken softness of your hair
    Where faint bronze shadows are,
Your strangely slight and youthful air,
    No passions seem to ...

Aw'm turned o' sixty, nah, old lass,
Yet weel aw mind the time,
When like a young horse turned to grass,
Aw gloried i' mi prime.
Aw'st ne'er forget that bonny face
'At stole mi heart away;
Tho' years have hurried on apace: -
Aw'm sixty, turned, to-day.

We had some jolly pranks an gams,
E'en fifty year ago,
When sportive as a pair o' lambs,
We nivver dreeamed ov woe.
When ivvery morn we left us bed,
Wi' spirits leet an gay, -
But nah, old lass, those days have fled: -
Aw'm sixty, turned, to-day.

Yet we've noa reason to repine,
Or luk back wi' regret;
Those youthful days ov thine an mine,
Live sweet in mem'ry yet.
Thy winnin smile aw still can see,
An tho' thi hair's turned grey;
Tha'rt still as sweet an dear to me,

A still, sweet, placid, moonlight face,
And slightly nonchalant,
Which seems to claim a middle place
Between one's love and aunt,
Where childhood's star has left a ray
In woman's sunniest sky,
As morning dew and blushing day
On fruit and blossom lie.

And yet, - and yet I cannot love
Those lovely lines on steel;
They beam too much of heaven above,
Earth's darker shades to feel;
Perchance some early weeds of care
Around my heart have grown,
And brows unfurrowed seem not fair,
Because they mock my own.

Alas! when Eden's gates were sealed,
How oft some sheltered flower
Breathed o'er the wanderers of the field,
Like their own bridal bower;
Yet, saddened by its loveliness,
And humbled by its pride,
Earth's fairest child they...

"The plaint of the wailing Whip-poor-will,
    Who mourns unseen and ceaseless sings
Ever a note of wail and wo,
    Till Morning spreads her rosy wings,
And earth and sky in her glances glow."

                                J. R. Drake.


Why dost thou come at set of sun,
Those pensive words to say?
Why whip poor Will?--What has he done?
And who is Will, I pray?

Why come from yon leaf-shaded hill,
A suppliant at my door?--
Why ask of me to whip poor Will?
And is Will really poor?

If poverty's his crime, let mirth
From his heart be driven:
That is the deadliest sin on earth,
And never is forgiven!

Art Will himself?--It must be so--
I learn it from thy moan,
For none can feel another's wo
As deeply as ...

"Her divine skill taught me this,
That from every thing I saw
I could some instruction draw,
And raise pleasure to the height
Through the meanest objects sight.
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rustelling;
By a Daisy whose leaves spread
Shut when Titan goes to bed;
Or a shady bush or tree;
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man.'
    G. Wither.

    
    
In youth from rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,
Most pleased when most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make,
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature's love partake,
Of Thee, sweet Daisy!

Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly...

As we look back at our lost Used-to-Be,
'The light that never was on land or sea'
    Touches the distant mountain peaks with gold,
    And through the glass of memory we behold
Such blossoms as grow not on any lea.

The double leaf upon the poplar tree
Turns up its silver side to you and me,
And glow-worm lanterns light the lonely wold
    As we look back.

No sounds we hear but echoes of young glee;
No winds we feel but west winds blowing free,
    From those fair isles that seem a thousandfold
    More beautiful than in the days of old;
And all the clouds that hang above them flee,
        As we look back.

She rose up in the early dawn,
    And white and silently she moved
About the house.    Four men had gone
    To battle for the land they loved,
And she, the mother and the wife,
Waited for tidings from the strife.
How still the house seemed! and her tread
Was like the footsteps of the dead.

The long day passed, the dark night came;
    She had not seen a human face.
Some voice spoke suddenly her name.
    How loud it echoed in that place
Where, day by day, no sound was heard
But her own footsteps!    "Bring you word,"
She cried to whom she could not see,
"Word from the battle-plain to me?"

A soldier entered at the door,
    And stood within the dim firelight:
"I bring you tidings of the four,"
    He said, "who left you for the figh...

No new delights to our desire
    The singers of the past can yield.
    I lift mine eyes to hill and field,
And see in them your yet dumb lyre,
    Poets unborn and unrevealed.

Singers to come, what thoughts will start
    To song? what words of yours be sent
    Through man's soul, and with earth be blent?
These worlds of nature and the heart
    Await you like an instrument.

Who knows what musical flocks of words
    Upon these pine-tree tops will light,
    And crown these towers in circling flight
And cross these seas like summer birds,
    And give a voice to the day and night?

Something of you already is ours;
    Some mystic part of you belongs
    To us whose dreams your future throngs,
Who look on hills, and trees, and flo...

Though I wander far-off ways,
    Dearest, never doubt thou me:

Mine is not the love that strays,
Though I wander far-off ways:

Faithfully for all my days
    I have vowed myself to thee:
Though I wander far-off ways,
    Dearest, never doubt thou me.

1.

Think'st thou I saw thy beauteous eyes,
Suffus'd in tears, implore to stay;
And heard unmov'd thy plenteous sighs,
Which said far more than words can say?


2.

Though keen the grief thy tears exprest,
When love and hope lay both o'erthrown;
Yet still, my girl, this bleeding breast
Throbb'd, with deep sorrow, as thine own.


3.

But, when our cheeks with anguish glow'd,
When thy sweet lips were join'd to mine;
The tears that from my eyelids flow'd
Were lost in those which fell from thine.


4.

Thou could'st not feel my burning cheek,
Thy gushing tears had quench'd its flame,
And, as thy tongue essay'd to speak,
In sighs alone<...