Death

Adown the track that skirts the shallow stream
I wandered with blank mind; a bypath drew
My aimless steps aside, and, ere I knew,
The forest closed around me like a dream.
The gold-strewn sward, the horizontal gleam
Of the low sun, pouring its splendors through
The far-withdrawing vistas, filled the view,
And everlasting beauty was supreme.

I knew not past or future; 'twas a mood
Transcending time and taking in the whole.
I was both young and old; my lost childhood,
Years yet unlived, were gathered round one goal;
And death was there familiar. Long I stood,
And in eternity renewed my soul.

What mischief cleaves to unsubdued regret,
How fancy sickens by vague hopes beset;
How baffled projects on the spirit prey,
And fruitless wishes eat the heart away,
The Sailor knows; he best, whose lot is cast
On the relentless sea that holds him fast
On chance dependent, and the fickle star
Of power, through long and melancholy war.
O sad it is, in sight of foreign shores,
Daily to think on old familiar doors,
Hearths loved in childhood, and ancestral floors;
Or, tossed about along a waste of foam,
To ruminate on that delightful home
Which with the dear Betrothed 'was' to come;
Or came and was and is, yet meets the eye
Never but in the world of memory;
Or in a dream recalled, whose smoothest range
Is crossed by knowledge, or by dread, of change,
And...

I Wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

Fair Ellen Irwin, when she sate
Upon the braes of Kirtle,
Was lovely as a Grecian maid
Adorned with wreaths of myrtle;
Young Adam Bruce beside her lay,
And there did they beguile the day
With love and gentle speeches,
Beneath the budding beeches.

From many knights and many squires
The Bruce had been selected;
And Gordon, fairest of them all,
By Ellen was rejected.
Sad tidings to that noble Youth!
For it may be proclaimed with truth,
If Bruce hath loved sincerely,
That Gordon loves as dearly.

But what are Gordon's form and face,
His shattered hopes and crosses,
To them, 'mid Kirtle's pleasant braes,
Reclined on flowers and mosses?
Alas that ever he was born!
The Gordon, couched behind a thorn,
Sees them and their caress...

Sometimes a lantern moves along the night,
That interests our eyes. And who goes there?
I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where,
With, all down darkness wide, his wading light?

Men go by me whom either beauty bright
In mould or mind or what not else makes rare:
They rain against our much-thick and marsh air
Rich beams, till death or distance buys them quite.

Death or distance soon consumes them: wind
What most I may eye after, be in at the end
I cannot, and out of sight is out of mind.

Christ minds: Christ's interest, what to avow or amend
There, éyes them, heart wánts, care haúnts, foot fóllows kínd,
Their ránsom, théir rescue, ánd first, fást, last friénd.

Morning, evening, noon and night,
“Praise God!; sang Theocrite.

Then to his poor trade he turned,
Whereby the daily meal was earned.

Hard he laboured, long and well;
O’er his work the boy’s curls fell:

But ever, at each period,
He stopped and sang, “Praise God!”

Then back again his curls he threw,
And cheerful turned to work anew.

Said Blaise, the listening monk, “Well done;
“I doubt not thou art heard, my son:

“As well as if thy voice to-day
“Were praising God, the Pope’s great way.

“This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome
“Praises God from Peter’s dome.”

Said Theocrite, “Would God that I
“Might praise him, that great way, and die!”

Night passed, day shone,
And Theocrite was gone.

With ...

Maceo dead! a thrill of sorrow
    Through our hearts in sadness ran
When we felt in one sad hour
    That the world had lost a man.

He had clasped unto his bosom
    The sad fortunes of his land -
Held the cause for which he perished
    With a firm, unfaltering hand.


On his lips the name of freedom
    Fainted with his latest breath.
Cuba Libre was his watchword
    Passing through the gates of death.

With the light of God around us,
    Why this agony and strife?
With the cross of Christ before us,
    Why this fearful waste of life?

Must the pathway unto freedom
    Ever mark a crimson line,
And the eyes of wayward mortals
    Always close to light divine?

Must the hearts of fearless valor
    Fa...

    AULD NIBOR,
    I'm three times doubly o'er your debtor,
    For your auld-farrent, frien'ly letter;
    Tho' I maun say't, I doubt ye flatter,
        Ye speak sae fair.
    For my puir, silly, rhymin clatter
        Some less maun sair.

    Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle;
    Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle,
    To cheer you thro' the weary widdle
        O' war'ly cares,
    Till bairn's bairns kindly cuddle
        Your auld, gray hairs.

    But Davie, lad, I'm red ye're glaikit;
    I'm tauld the Muse ye hae negleckit;
    An' gif it's sae, ye sud be licket
        Until yo fyke;
    Sic hauns as you sud ne'er be faiket,
        Be hain't who like.

    For me, I'm on Parnassus' brink,
    Rivin' the ...

Up the streets of Aberdeen,
By the kirk and college green,
Rode the Laird of Ury;
Close behind him, close beside,
Foul of mouth and evil-eyed,
Pressed the mob in fury.

Flouted him the drunken churl,
Jeered at him the serving-girl,
Prompt to please her master;
And the begging carlin, late
Fed and clothed at Ury’s gate,
Cursed him as he passed her.

Yet, with calm and stately mien,
Up the streets of Aberdeen
Came he slowly riding;
And, to all he saw and heard,
Answering not with bitter word,
Turning not for chiding.

Came a troop with broadswords swinging,
Bits and bridles sharply ringing,
Loose and free and froward;
Quoth the foremost, “Ride him down!
Push him! prick him! through the town
Drive the Quaker cowar...

Long years ago, ere R--lls or R--ce
Trebled the mileage man could cover;
When Sh--nks's Mare was H--bs--n's Choice,
And Bl--r--ot had not flown to Dover:
When good hoteliers looked askance
If any power save horse-flesh drew vans,
'Time was in easy, hand-made France,
I met the Cure of Saint Juvans.

He was no babbler, but, at last,
One learned from things he left unspoken
How in some fiery, far-off past,
His, and a woman's, heart were broken.
He sought for death, but found it not,
Yet, seeking, found his true vocation,
And fifty years, by all forgot,
Toiled at a simple folk's salvation.

His pay was lower than our Dole;
The piteous little church he tended
Had neither roof nor vestments whole
Save what his own hard fingers mended:
W...

A Reminiscence Of The War


We sat in the room
And praised her whom
We saw in the portico-shade outside:
She could not hear
What was said of her,
But smiled, for its purport we did not hide.

Then in was brought
That message, fraught
With evil fortune for her out there,
Whom we loved that day
More than any could say,
And would fain have fenced from a waft of care.

And the question pressed
Like lead on each breast,
Should we cloak the tidings, or call her and tell?
It was too intense
A choice for our sense,
As we pondered and watched her we loved so well.

Yea, spirit failed us
At what assailed us;
How long, while seeing what soon must come,
Should we counterfeit
No knowledge of it,
And stay the ...

This shred of song you bid me bring
Is snatched from fancy's embers;
Ah, when the lips forget to sing,
The faithful heart remembers!

Too swift the wings of envious Time
To wait for dallying phrases,
Or woven strands of labored rhyme
To thread their cunning mazes.

A word, a sigh, and lo, how plain
Its magic breath discloses
Our life's long vista through a lane
Of threescore summers' roses!

One language years alone can teach
Its roots are young affections
That feel their way to simplest speech
Through silent recollections.

That tongue is ours. How few the words
We need to know a brother!
As simple are the notes of birds,
Yet well they know each other.

This freezing month of ice and snow
That brings our lives...

    We crawled about the nursery
        In tenderest years in tether,
    At six we waded in the sea
        And caught our colds together.

    At ten we practised playing at
        A kind of heathen cricket,
    A croquet mallet was the bat,
        The Squire's old hat the wicket.

    At twelve, the cricket waxing slow,
        With home-made bow and arrow
    We took to shooting--once I know
        I all but hit a sparrow.

    She took birds' nests from easy trees,
        I climbed the oaks and ashes,
    'Twas deadly work for hands and knees,
        Deplorable for sashes.

    At hide and seek one summer day
        We played in merry laughter,
    'Twas then she hid her heart away,
        I never found it after....

Say thou not sadly, "never," and "no more,"
    But from thy lips banish those falsest words;
While life remains that which was thine before
Again may be thine; in Time's storehouse lie
    Days, hours, and moments, that have unknown hoards
Of joy, as well as sorrow: passing by,
Smiles, come with tears; therefore with hopeful eye
Look thou on dear things, though they turn away,
For thou and they, perchance, some future day
Shall meet again, and the gone bliss return;
For its departure then make thou no mourn,
But with stout heart bid what thou lov'st farewell;
That which the past hath given the future gives as well.

Low-flying breezes are roaming the broad valley dimm’d in the gloaming;
Thro’ the black-stemm’d pines only the far river shines.
Creeping thro’ blossomy rushes and bowers of rose-blowing bushes,
Down by the poplar tall rivulets babble and fall.
Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerly; the grasshopper carolleth clearly;
Deeply the wood-dove coos; shrilly the owlet halloos;
Winds creep; dews fall chilly: in her first sleep earth breathes stilly:
Over the pools in the burn water-gnats murmur and mourn.
Sadly the far kine loweth; the glimmering water outfloweth;
Twin peaks shadow’d with pine slope to the dark hyaline.
Low-throned Hesper is stayed between the two peaks; but the Naiad
Throbbing in mild unrest holds him beneath in her breast.
The ancient poetess singeth that Hesperus all thing...

When friends are listening round me, Jack, to hear my dying breath,
And I am lying in a sleep they say will end in death,
Don’t notice what the doctor says, and let the nurse complain,
I’ll tell you how to rouse me if I’ll ever wake again.

Just you bring in your fiddle, Jack, and set your heart in tune,
And strike up “Annie Laurie”, or “The Rising of the Moon”;
And if you see no token of a rising in my throat,
You’ll need to brace your mouth, old man—I’m booked by Charon’s boat.

And if you are not satisfied that I am off the scene,
Strike up “The Marseillaise”, or else “The Wearing of the Green”;
And should my fingers tremble not, then I have crossed the line,
But keep your fingers steady, Jack, and strike up “Auld Lang Syne”.

1.
The waters are flashing,
The white hail is dashing,
The lightnings are glancing,
The hoar-spray is dancing -
Away!

The whirlwind is rolling,
The thunder is tolling,
The forest is swinging,
The minster bells ringing -
Come away!

The Earth is like Ocean,
Wreck-strewn and in motion:
Bird, beast, man and worm
Have crept out of the storm -
Come away!

2.
'Our boat has one sail
And the helmsman is pale; -
A bold pilot I trow,
Who should follow us now,' -
Shouted he -

And she cried: 'Ply the oar!
Put off gaily from shore!' -
As she spoke, bolts of death
Mixed with hail, specked their path
O'er the sea.

And from isle, tower and rock,
The blue beacon-cloud broke,
And though...

Volo con l' ali de' pensieri al cielo.

HE SEEMS TO BE WITH HER IN HEAVEN.


    So often on the wings of thought I fly
Up to heaven's blissful seats, that I appear
As one of those whose treasure is lodged there,
The rent veil of mortality thrown by.
A pleasing chillness thrills my heart, while I
Listen to her voice, who bids me paleness wear--
"Ah! now, my friend, I love thee, now revere,
For changed thy face, thy manners," doth she cry.
She leads me to her Lord: and then I bow,
Preferring humble prayer, He would allow
That I his glorious face, and hers might see.
Thus He replies: "Thy destiny's secure;
To stay some twenty, or some ten years more,
Is but a little space, though long it seems to thee."

NOTT.