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Page 213 of 1676

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Page 213 of 1676

Ash-Wednesday.

Glitt'ring balls and thoughtless revels
Fill up now each misspent night -
'Tis the reign of pride and folly,
The Carnival is at its height.
Every thought for siren pleasure,
And its sinful, feverish mirth;
Who can find one moment's leisure
For aught else save things of earth?

But, see, sudden stillness falling
O'er those revels, late so loud,
And a hush comes quickly over
All the maddened giddy crowd,
For a voice from out our churches
Has proclaimed in words that burn:
"Only dust art thou, proud mortal,
And to dust shall thou return!"

And, behold, Religion scatters
Dust and ashes on each brow;
Thus replacing gem and flower
With that lowly symbol now:
On the forehead fair of beauty,
...

Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

The Cemetery Nightingale

In the hills' embraces holden,
In a valley filled with glooms,
Lies a cemetery olden,
Strewn with countless mould'ring tombs.

Ancient graves o'erhung with mosses,
Crumbling stones, effaced and green,--
Venturesome is he who crosses,
Night or day, the lonely scene.

Blasted trees and willow streamers,
'Midst the terror round them spread,
Seem like awe-bound, silent dreamers
In this garden of the dead.

One bird, anguish stricken, lingers
In the shadow of the vale,
First and best of feathered singers,--
'Tis the churchyard nightingale.

As from bough to bough he flutters,
Sweetest songs of woe and wail
Through his gift divine he utters
For the dreamers in the vale.

Listen how ...

Morris Rosenfeld

A Sea-Side Walk

We walked beside the sea,
After a day which perished silently
Of its own glory, like the Princess weird
Who, combating the Genius, scorched and seared,
Uttered with burning breath, "Ho! victory!"
And sank adown, an heap of ashes pale;
So runs the Arab tale.

The sky above us showed
An universal and unmoving cloud,
On which, the cliffs permitted us to see
Only the outline of their majesty,
As master-minds, when gazed at by the crowd!
And, shining with a gloom, the water grey
Swang in its moon-taught way.

Nor moon nor stars were out.
They did not dare to tread so soon about,
Though trembling, in the footsteps of the sun.
The light was neither night's nor day's, but one
Which, life-like, had a beauty in its doubt;
And Silence's impassion...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A Woodland Grave

White moons may come, white moons may go
She sleeps where early blossoms blow;
Knows nothing of the leafy June,
That leans above her night and noon,
Crowned now with sunbeam, now with moon,
Watching her roses grow.

The downy moth at twilight comes
And flutters round their honeyed blooms:
Long, lazy clouds, like ivory,
That isle the blue lagoons of sky,
Redden to molten gold and dye
With flame the pine-deep glooms.

Dew, dripping from wet fern and leaf;
The wind, that shakes the violet's sheaf;
The slender sound of water lone,
That makes a harp-string of some stone,
And now a wood bird's glimmering moan,
Seem whisperings there of grief.

Her garden, where the lilacs grew,
Where, on old walls, old roses blew,
Head-heavy with t...

Madison Julius Cawein

A Voice From The Dungeon

I'm buried now; I've done with life;
I've done with hate, revenge and strife;
I've done with joy, and hope and love
And all the bustling world above.

Long have I dwelt forgotten here
In pining woe and dull despair;
This place of solitude and gloom
Must be my dungeon and my tomb.

No hope, no pleasure can I find:
I am grown weary of my mind;
Often in balmy sleep I try
To gain a rest from misery,

And in one hour of calm repose
To find a respite from my woes,
But dreamless sleep is not for me
And I am still in misery.

I dream of liberty, 'tis true,
But then I dream of sorrow too,
Of blood and guilt and horrid woes,
Of tortured friends and happy foes;

I dream about the world, but then
I dream of fiends instead ...

Anne Bronte

Reproach To Laura.

Maiden, stay! oh, whither wouldst thou go?
Do I still or pride or grandeur show?
Maiden, was it right?
Thou the giant mad'st a dwarf once more,
Scattered'st far the mountains that of yore
Climbed to glory's sunny height.

Thou hast doomed my flowerets to decay,
All the phantoms bright hast blown away,
Whose sweet follies formed the hero's trust;
All my plans that proudly raised their head
Thou dost, with gentle zephyr-tread,
Prostrate, laughing, in the dust.

To the godhead, eagle-like, I flew,
Smiling, fortune's juggling wheel to view,
Careless wheresoe'er her ball might fly;
Hovering far beyond Cocytus' wave,
Death and life receiving like a slave
Life and death from out one beaming eye!

Like the victors, who, with thunder-lance,

Friedrich Schiller

Sonnet LIV. A Persian King To His Son.

FROM A PROSE TRANSLATION IN SIR WILLIAM JONES' ESSAY ON THE POETRY OF THE EASTERN NATIONS.


Guard thou, my Son, the Helpless and the Poor,
Nor in the chains of thine own indolence
Slumber enervate, while the joys of sense
Engross thee; and thou say'st, "I ask no more." -
Wise Men the Shepherd's slumber will deplore
When the rapacious Wolf has leapt the fence,
And ranges thro' the fold. - My Son, dispense
Those laws, that justice to the Wrong'd restore. -
The Common-Weal shou'd be the first pursuit
Of the crown'd Warrior, for the royal brows
The People first enwreath'd. - They are the Root,
The King the Tree. Aloft he spreads his boughs
Glorious; but learn, impetuous Youth, at length,
Trees from the Root alone der...

Anna Seward

Three Flower Petals.

What saw I yesterday walking apart
In a leafy place where the cattle wait?
Something to keep for a charm in my heart -
A little sweet girl in a garden gate.
Laughing she lay in the gold sun's might,
And held for a target to shelter her,
In her little soft fingers, round and white,
The gold-rimmed face of a sunflower.

Laughing she lay on the stone that stands
For a rough-hewn step in that sunny place,
And her yellow hair hung down to her hands,
Shadowing over her dimpled face.
Her eyes like the blue of the sky, made dim
With the might of the sun that looked at her,
Shone laughing over the serried rim,
Golden set, of the sunflower.

Laughing, for token she gave to me
Three petals out of the sunflower; -
When the petals are withered and gone,...

Archibald Lampman

A Spirit's Voice.

It is the dawn! the rosy day awakes;
From her bright hair pale showers of dew she shakes,
And through the heavens her early pathway takes;
Why art thou sleeping?

It is the noon! the sun looks laughing down
On hamlet still, on busy shore, and town,
On forest glade, and deep dark waters lone;
Why art thou sleeping?

It is the sunset! daylight's crimson veil
Floats o'er the mountain tops, while twilight pale
Calls up her vaporous shrouds from every vale;
Why art thou sleeping?

It is the night! o'er the moon's livid brow,
Like shadowy locks, the clouds their darkness throw,
All evil spirits wake to wander now;
Why art thou sleeping?

Frances Anne Kemble

A Part Of An Ode

To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that noble pair,
Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison


It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures, life may perfect be.

Call, noble Lucius, then for wine,
And let thy looks with gladness shine:
Accept this garland, plant it on thy head,
And think—nay, know—thy Morison ’s not dead.
He leap’d the present age,
Possest with holy rage
To see that bright eternal Day
Of which we Priests and Poets say
Such trut...

Ben Jonson

How Lightly Mounts The Muse'S Wing. (Air--Anonymous.)

How lightly mounts the Muse's wing,
Whose theme is in the skies--
Like morning larks that sweeter sing
The nearer Heaven they rise,

Tho' love his magic lyre may tune,
Yet ah, the flowers he round it wreathes,
Were plucked beneath pale Passion's moon,
Whose madness in their ode breathes.

How purer far the sacred lute,
Round which Devotion ties
Sweet flowers that turn to heavenly fruit,
And palm that never dies.

Tho' War's high-sounding harp may be.,
Most welcome to the hero's ears,
Alas, his chords of victory
Are wet, all o'er, with human tears.

How far more sweet their numbers run,
Who hymn like Saints above,
No victor but the Eternal One,
No trophies but of Love!

Thomas Moore

A Canadian Trooper To His Horse

    Rest here, my horse, the night is dull, - the blood-sick stars are gone,
Listen, for thou like me wert bred in far Saskatchewan.
And this September night at home, under a happier sky,
The bursting yellow sheaves upon the unbounded prairie lie.
Bread, bread - the staff and stay of life - 'tis what the wheatlands yield;
But only death and agony are gathered from this field.

There's respite now, but ah! good friend, before another day,
Although our bodies may be here, we, we, how far away!
We've ridden many a weary mile, together we have fought
For Freedom, honor and the right, and anything we've wrought
Our Country to the Empire will still more closely bind.
Ah! where the reddened maple leaf is fluttering in the wind,
There ...

Helen Leah Reed

An Ante-Bellum Sermon

We is gathahed hyeah, my brothahs,
In dis howlin' wildaness,
Fu' to speak some words of comfo't
To each othah in distress.
An' we chooses fu' ouah subjic'
Dis--we'll 'splain it by an' by;
"An' de Lawd said, 'Moses, Moses,'
An' de man said, 'Hyeah am I.'"

Now ole Pher'oh, down in Egypt,
Was de wuss man evah bo'n,
An' he had de Hebrew chillun
Down dah wukin' in his co'n;
'T well de Lawd got tiahed o' his foolin',
An' sez he: "I' ll let him know--
Look hyeah, Moses, go tell Pher'oh
Fu' to let dem chillun go."

"An' ef he refuse to do it,
I will make him rue de houah,
Fu' I'll empty down on Egypt
All de vials of my powah."
Yes, he did--an' Pher'oh's ahmy
Wasn't wuth a ha'f a dime;
Fu' de Lawd will he'p his chillun,
You...

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Hermione

On a mound an Arab lay,
And sung his sweet regrets
And told his amulets:
The summer bird
His sorrow heard,
And, when he heaved a sigh profound,
The sympathetic swallow swept the ground.

'If it be, as they said, she was not fair,
Beauty's not beautiful to me,
But sceptred genius, aye inorbed,
Culminating in her sphere.
This Hermione absorbed
The lustre of the land and ocean,
Hills and islands, cloud and tree,
In her form and motion.

'I ask no bauble miniature,
Nor ringlets dead
Shorn from her comely head,
Now that morning not disdains
Mountains and the misty plains
Her colossal portraiture;
They her heralds be,
Steeped in her quality,
And singers of her fame
Who is their Muse and dame.

'Higher, dear...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

In The Lane

When the hornet hangs in the hollyhock,
And the brown bee drones i' the rose;
And the west is a red-streaked four-o'clock,
And summer is near its close -
It's oh, for the gate and the locust lane,
And dusk and dew and home again!

When the katydid sings and the cricket cries,
And ghosts of the mists ascend;
And the evening star is a lamp i' the skies,
And summer is near its end -
It's oh, for the fence and the leafy lane,
And the twilight peace and the tryst again!

When the owlet hoots in the dogwood tree,
That leans to the rippling Run;
And the wind is a wildwood melody,
And summer is almost done -
It's oh, for the bridge and the bramble lane,
And the fragrant hush and her hands again!

When fields smell sweet with the dewy hay,

Madison Julius Cawein

Light And Warmth.

In cheerful faith that fears no ill
The good man doth the world begin;
And dreams that all without shall still
Reflect the trusting soul within.
Warm with the noble vows of youth,
Hallowing his true arm to the truth;

Yet is the littleness of all
So soon to sad experience shown,
That crowds but teach him to recall
And centre thought on self alone;
Till love, no more, emotion knows,
And the heart freezes to repose.

Alas! though truth may light bestow,
Not always warmth the beams impart,
Blest he who gains the boon to know,
Nor buys the knowledge with the heart.
For warmth and light a blessing both to be,
Feel as the enthusiast as the world-wise see.

Friedrich Schiller

The White Man's Burden

Take up the White man's burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times mad plain.
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden
The savage wars of peace
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden

Rudyard

Tides

Love in my heart was a fresh tide flowing
Where the star-like sea gulls soar;
The sun was keen and the foam was blowing
High on the rocky shore.

But now in the dusk the tide is turning,
Lower the sea gulls soar,
And the waves that rose in resistless yearning
Are broken forevermore.

Sara Teasdale

Page 213 of 1676

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Page 213 of 1676