Betrayal

        1.

        THE song birds that come to me night and morn,
        Fly oft away and vanish if I sleep,
        Nor to my fowling-net will one return:
        Is the thing ever ours we cannot keep?--
        But their souls go not out into the deep.
        What matter if with changed song they come back?
        Old strength nor yet fresh beauty shall they lack.

        2.

        Gloriously wasteful, O my Lord, art thou!
        Sunset faints after sunset into the night,
        Splendorously dying from thy window-sill--
        For ever. Sad our poverty doth bow
        Before the riches of thy making might:
        Sweep from thy space thy systems at thy will--
        In thee the sun sets every sunset still.

        3.
<...

Under the snow in the dark and the cold,
    A pale little sprout was humming;
Sweetly it sang, 'neath the frozen mold,
    Of the beautiful days that were coming.

"How foolish your songs," said a lump of clay,
    "What is there, I ask, to prove them?
Just look at the walls between you and the day,
    Now, have you the strength to move them?"

But under the ice and under the snow
    The pale little sprout kept singing,
"I cannot tell how, but I know, I know,
    I know what the days are bringing."

"Birds, and blossoms, and buzzing bees,
    Blue, blue skies above me,
Bloom on the meadows and buds on the trees,
    And the great glad sun to love me."

A pebble spoke next: "You are quite absurd."
    It said, "with your song's insis...

I wad I were where Helen lies;
Night and day on me she cries;
O that I were where Helen lies,
On fair Kirkconnell lea!

Curst be the heart that thought the thought,
And curst the hand that fired the shot,
When in my arms burd Helen dropt,
And died to succour me!

O think na but my heart was sair
When my Love dropt and spak nae mair!
I laid her down wi' meikle care,
On fair Kirkconnell lea.

As I went down the water side,
Nane but my foe to be my guide,
Nane but my foe to be my guide,
On fair Kirkconnell lea.

I lighted down my sword to draw,
I hacked him in pieces sma',
I hacked him in pieces sma',
For her sake that died for me.

O Helen fair, beyond compare!
I'll make a garland of thy hair,
Shall bind my ...

My faithful friend, if you can see
The fruit to grow up, or the tree;
If you can see the colour come
Into the blushing pear or plum;
If you can see the water grow
To cakes of ice, or flakes of snow;
If you can see that drop of rain
Lost in the wild sea once again;
If you can see how dreams do creep
Into the brain by easy sleep:
Then there is hope that you may see
Her love me once, who now hates me.

I.

From hill and hollow, side by side,
The shadows came, like dreams, to sit
And watch, mysterious, sunset-eyed,
The wool-winged moths and bats aflit,
And the lone owl that cried and cried.
And then the forest rang a gong,
Hoarse, toadlike; and from out the gate
Of darkness came a sound of song,
As of a gnome that called his mate,
Who answered in his own strange tongue.
And all the forest leaned to hear,
And saw, from forth the entangling trees,
A naked spirit drawing near,
A glimmering presence, whom the breeze
Kept whispering, "Forward! Have no fear."

II.

The woodland, seeming at a loss,
Afraid to breathe, or make a sound,
Poured, where her silvery feet should cross,
A dripping pathway on the ground,
And hedged it i...

The burly driver at my side,
We slowly climbed the hill,
Whose summit, in the hot noontide,
Seemed rising, rising still.
At last, our short noon-shadows bid
The top-stone, bare and brown,
From whence, like Gizeh's pyramid,
The rough mass slanted down.

I felt the cool breath of the North;
Between me and the sun,
O'er deep, still lake, and ridgy earth,
I saw the cloud-shades run.
Before me, stretched for glistening miles,
Lay mountain-girdled Squam;
Like green-winged birds, the leafy isles
Upon its bosom swam.

And, glimmering through the sun-haze warm,
Far as the eye could roam,
Dark billows of an earthquake storm
Beflecked with clouds like foam,
Their vales in misty shadow deep,
Their rugged peaks in shine,
I saw the mo...

    All sights and sounds of day and year,
    All groups and forms, each leaf and gem,
    Are thine, O God, nor will I fear
    To talk to thee of them.

        Too great thy heart is to despise,
    Whose day girds centuries about;
    From things which we name small, thine eyes
    See great things looking out.

        Therefore the prayerful song I sing
    May come to thee in ordered words:
    Though lowly born, it needs not cling
    In terror to its chords.

        I think that nothing made is lost;
    That not a moon has ever shone,
    That not a cloud my eyes hath crossed
    But to my soul is gone.

        That all the lost years garnered lie
    In this thy casket, my dim soul;
    And thou wilt, once, th...

SPOKEN BY MR BETTERTON. 1690.


    What Nostradame, with all his art, can guess
    The fate of our approaching Prophetess?
    A play which, like a pérspective set right,
    Presents our vast expenses close to sight;
    But turn the tube, and there we sadly view
    Our distant gains; and those uncertain too:
    A sweeping tax, which on ourselves we raise,
    And all, like you, in hopes of better days;
    When will our losses warn us to be wise?
    Our wealth decreases, and our charges rise.
    Money, the sweet allurer of our hopes,
    Ebbs out in oceans, and comes in by drops;
    We raise new objects to provoke delight,
    But you grow sated ere the second sight.
    False men, e'en so you serve your mistresses:
    They rise three store...

Glimmers gray the leafless thicket
    Close beside my garden gate,
Where, so light, from post to picket
    Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate;
    Who, with meekly folded wing,
    Comes to sun himself and sing.

It was there, perhaps, last year,
    That his little house he built;
For he seems to perk and peer,
    And to twitter, too, and tilt
    The bare branches in between,
    With a fond, familiar mien.

Once, I know, there was a nest,
    Held there by the sideward thrust
Of those twigs that touch his breast;
    Though 'tis gone now. Some rude gust
    Caught it, over-full of snow, -
    Bent the bush, - and robbed it so

Thus our highest holds are lost,
    By the ruthless winter's wind,
When, with swift-dismantling...

'Tis here we invade the valley,
Away from the realms of breath,
And, in most successful sally,
We enter the gates of death;
So, stand in the last line steady,
'Tis here our true glory lies;
Hurrah for the dead already!
Three cheers for the next who dies!

Though here, the wet eyes of woman
Will fill with the falling tear,
Yet, facing old Death, our foeman,
We shout our reviving cheer.
Though high beat the hearts we cherish,
The dead we most highly prize:
Hurrah for the first to perish!
Three cheers for the next who dies!

The earth we now leave behind us,
The heavens now beckon before,
Though dust of the dead may blind us,
We march for the shining shore;
No more can our Hope deceive us,
Our heart to it now replies,
Hurra...

Little childer, - little childer;
Harken to an old man's ditty;
Tho yo live ith' country village, -
Tho yo live ith' busy city.
Aw've a little tale to tell yo, -
One 'at ne'er grows stale wi' tellin, -
It's abaat One who to save yo,
Here amang men made His dwellin.
Riches moor nor yo can fancy, -
Moor nor all this world has in it, -
He gave up becoss He loved yo,
An He's lovin yo this minnit.
All His power, pomp and glory,
Which to think on must bewilder, -
All He left, - an what for think yo?
Just for love ov little childer.
In a common, lowly stable
He wor laid, an th' stars wor twinklin,
As if angel's 'een wor peepin
On His face 'at th' dew wor sprinklin.
An one star, like a big lantern,
Shepherds who ther flocks wor keepin,
Sa...

The season of the rose and peace is past:
It could not last.
There's heartbreak in the hills and stormy sighs
Of sorrow in the rain-lashed plains and skies,
While Earth regards, aghast,
The last red leaf that flies.

The world is cringing in the darkness where
War left his lair,
And everything takes on a lupine look,
Baring gaunt teeth at every peaceful nook,
And shaking torrent hair
At every little brook.

Cancers of ulcerous flame his eyes, and hark!
There in the dark
The ponderous stir of metal, iron feet;
And with it, heard around the world, the beat
Of Battle; sounds that mark
His heart's advance, retreat.

With shrapnel pipes he goes his monstrous ways;
And, screeching, plays
The hell-born music Havoc dances to;
An...

I wish we might go gypsying one day the while we're young--
On a blue October morning
Beneath a cloudless sky,
When all the world's a vibrant harp
The winds o' God have strung,
And gay as tossing torches the maples light us by;
The rising sun before us--a golden bubble swung--
I wish we might go gypsying one day the while we're young.

I wish we might go gypsying one day before we're old--
To step it with the wild west wind
And sing the while we go,
Through far forgotten orchards
Hung with jewels red and gold;
Through cool and fragrant forests where never sun may show,
To stand upon a high hill and watch the mist unfold--
I wish we might go gypsying one day before we're old.

I wish we might go gypsying, dear lad, the while we care--
The while w...

I was walking over a wide plain alone.

And suddenly I fancied light, cautious footsteps behind my back.... Some one was walking after me.

I looked round, and saw a little, bent old woman, all muffled up in grey rags. The face of the old woman alone peeped out from them; a yellow, wrinkled, sharp-nosed, toothless face.

I went up to her.... She stopped.

'Who are you? What do you want? Are you a beggar? Do you seek alms?'

The old woman did not answer. I bent down to her, and noticed that both her eyes were covered with a half-transparent membrane or skin, such as is seen in some birds; they protect their eyes with it from dazzling light.

But in the old woman, the membrane did not move nor uncover the eyes ... from which I concluded she was blind.

'Do you want alms?'...

To the garden, the world, anew ascending,
Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,
The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,
Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber;
The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, have brought me again,
Amorous, mature all beautiful to me all wondrous;
My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for reasons, most wondrous;
Existing, I peer and penetrate still,
Content with the present content with the past,
By my side, or back of me, Eve following,
Or in front, and I following her just the same.

    When the warm sun, that brings
Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,
'Tis sweet to visit the still wood, where springs
    The first flower of the plain.

    I love the season well,
When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell
    The coming-on of storms.

    From the earth's loosened mould
The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives;
Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold,
    The drooping tree revives.

    The softly-warbled song
Comes from the pleasant woods and coloured wings
Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along
    The forest openings.

    When the bright sunset fills
The silver woods with light, the green slope throws
Its shadows in the hollows...

NEAR Rome, of yore, close to the Florence road,
Was seen a humble innkeeper's abode;
Small sums were charged; few guests the night would stay;
And these could seldom much afford to pay.
A pleasing active partner had the host
Her age not much 'bove thirty at the most;
Two children she her loving husband bore;
The boy was one year old: the daughter more;
Just fifteen summers o'er her form had smiled;
In person charming, and in temper mild.

IT happened that Pinucio, young and gay,
A youth of family, oft passed the way,
Admired the girl, and thought she might be gained,
Attentions showed, and like return obtained;
The mistress was not deaf, nor lover mute;
Pinucio seemed the lady's taste to suit,
Of pleasing person and engaging air;
And 'mong the equals...

What cares the rose if the buds which are its pride
Be plucked for the breast of the dead or the hands of a bride?

The mother-drift if its pebbles be dull inglorious things,
Or diamonds fit to shine from the diadems of kings?

Sing, O poet, the moods of thy moments each
Perfect to thee whatever the meaning it reach.

Let the years find if it be as a soulless stone,
Or under the words which hide there be a glory alone.