Freedom

How beautiful a new sun is when it rises,
flashing out its greeting, like an explosion!
Happy, whoever hails with sweet emotion
its descent, nobler than a dream, to our eyes!


I remember! I’ve seen all, flower, furrow, fountain,
swoon beneath its look, like a throbbing heart
Let’s run quickly, it’s late, towards the horizon,
to catch at least one slanting ray as it departs!


But I pursue the vanishing God in vain:
irresistible Night establishes its sway,
full of shudders, black, dismal, cold:


an odour of the tomb floats in the shadow,
at the swamp’s edge, feet faltering I go,
bruising damp slugs, and unexpected toads.

(Mirza)

Pray! Pray! Let loose the bridle. Look not down!
        The humble horse alone has wisdom here.
He knows where blackest the abysses leer
        And where the path in safety leads us down.
Pray, and look upward to the mountain's crown!
        The deep below is endless where you peer;
Stretch not the hand out as you pass, for fear
        The added weight of that might plunge you down.

And check your thoughts' free flight, too, while you go;
        Let all of Fancy's fluttering sails be furled
Here where Death watches o'er the riven world.

(Pilgrim)

        I lived to cross the bridge of ancient snow!
                But what I saw my tongue no more can tell,
        The angels only could rehearse that well.


(MIRZA...

LEADER.

Let no cares now hover o'er us

Let the wine unsparing run!
Wilt thou swell our merry chorus?

Hast thou all thy duty done?

SOLO.

Two young folks the thing is curious

Loved each other; yesterday
Both quite mild, to-day quite furious,

Next day, quite the deuce to pay!
If her neck she there was stooping,

He must here needs pull his hair.
I revived their spirits drooping,

And they're now a happy pair.

CHORUS.

Surely we for wine may languish!

Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish

Thou to-day in joy hast drown'd.

SOLO.

Why, young orphan, all this wailing?

"Would to heaven that I were dead!
For my guardian's ...

I saw her crop a rose
Right early in the day,
And I went to kiss the place
Where she broke the rose away
And I saw the patten rings
Where she oer the stile had gone,
And I love all other things
Her bright eyes look upon.
If she looks upon the hedge or up the leafing tree,
The whitethorn or the brown oak are made dearer things to me.

I have a pleasant hill
Which I sit upon for hours,
Where she cropt some sprigs of thyme
And other little flowers;
And she muttered as she did it
As does beauty in a dream,
And I loved her when she hid it
On her breast, so like to cream,
Near the brown mole on her neck that to me a diamond shone
Then my eye was like to fire, and my heart was like to stone.

There is a small green place
Where cowsl...

Where the broad sheepwalk bare and brown
[Yields] scant grass pining after showers,
And winds go fanning up and down
The little strawy bents and nodding flowers,
There the huge thistle, spurred with many thorns,
The suncrackt upland's russet swells adorns.

Not undevoid of beauty there they come,
Armed warriors, waiting neither suns nor showers,
Guarding the little clover plots to bloom
While sheep nor oxen dare not crop their flowers
Unsheathing their own knobs of tawny flowers
When summer cometh in her hottest hours.

The pewit, swopping up and down
And screaming round the passer bye,
Or running oer the herbage brown
With copple crown uplifted high,
Loves in its clumps to make a home
Where danger seldom cares to come.

The yellowhamm...

Now happy swains review the plains,
And hail the first of May;
Now linnets sing to welcome spring,
And every soul is gay.

Hob, joyful soul, high rears the pole,
With wild-flower wreaths entwin'd;
Then tiptoe round the maidens bound,
All sorrow lags behind.

Branches of thorn their doors adorn,
With every flowret lin'd
That earliest spring essays to bring,
Or searching maids can find.

All swains resort to join the sport,
E'en age will not disdain,
But oft will throng to hear the song,
And view the jocund train.

I often too had us'd to go,
The rural mirth to share,
But what, alas l time brought to pass,
Soon made me absent there.

My Colin died the village pride,
O hapless misery!
Then sports adieu, with ...

        Wae worth thy power, thou cursed leaf,
        Fell source o' a' my woe an' grief;
        For lack o' thee I've lost my lass,
        For lack o' thee I scrimp my glass.
        I see the children of affliction
        Unaided, through thy cursed restriction
        I've seen the oppressor's cruel smile
        Amid his hapless victim's spoil:
        And for thy potence vainly wished,
        To crush the villain in the dust.
    For lack o' thee, I leave this much-lov'd shore,
    Never, perhaps, to greet old Scotland more.

R. B.

    See how the storm of life ascends
Up through the shadow of the world!
Beyond our gaze the line extends,
Like wreaths of vapour tempest-hurled!
Grasp tighter, brother, lest the storm
Should sweep us down from where we stand,
And we may catch some human form
We know, amongst the straining band.

    See! see in yonder misty cloud
One whirlwind sweep, and we shall hear
The voice that waxes yet more loud
And louder still approaching near!

    Tremble not, brother, fear not thou,
For yonder wild and mystic strain
Will bring before us strangely now
The visions of our youth again!

    Listen! oh listen!
See how its eyeballs roll and glisten
With a wild and fearful stare
Upwards through the shining air,
Or backwards with averte...

I.

Here we halt our march, and pitch our tent
On the rugged forest ground,
And light our fire with the branches rent
By winds from the beeches round.
Wild storms have torn this ancient wood,
But a wilder is at hand,
With hail of iron and rain of blood,
To sweep and waste the land.

II.

How the dark wood rings with voices shrill,
That startle the sleeping bird;
To-morrow eve must the voice be still,
And the step must fall unheard.
The Briton lies by the blue Champlain,
In Ticonderoga's towers,
And ere the sun rise twice again,
The towers and the lake are ours.

III.

Fill up the bowl from the brook that glides
Where the fireflies light the brake;
A ruddier juice the Briton hides
In his fortress by the lak...

Here in the golden darkness
And green night of the woods,
A flitting form I follow,
A shadow that eludes -
Or is it but the phantom
Of former forest moods?

The phantom of some fancy
I knew when I was young,
And in my dreaming boyhood,
The wildwood flow'rs among,
Young face to face with Faery
Spoke in no unknown tongue.

Blue were her eyes, and golden
The nimbus of her hair;
And crimson as a flower
Her mouth that kissed me there;
That kissed and bade me follow,
And smiled away my care.

A magic and a marvel
Lived in her word and look,
As down among the blossoms
She sate me by the brook,
And read me wonder-legends
In Nature's Story Book.

Loved fairy-tales forgotten,
She never reads again,
Of...

Under mossy oak and pine
Whispering falls the fountained stream;
In its pool the lilies shine
Silvery, each a moonlight gleam.

Roses bloom and roses die
In the warm rose-scented dark,
Where the firefly, like an eye,
Winks and glows, a golden spark.

Amber-belted through the night
Swings the alabaster moon,
Like a big magnolia white
On the fragrant heart of June.

With a broken syrinx there,
With bignonia overgrown,
Is it Pan in hoof and hair,
Or his image carved from stone?

See! her casement's jessamines part,
And, with starry blossoms blent,
Like the moon she leans O heart,
'Tis another firmament.

This passion is but an ember
    Of a Sun, of a Fire, long set;
I could not live and remember,
    And so I love and forget.

You say, and the tone is fretful,
    That my mourning days were few,
You call me over forgetful -
    My God, if you only knew!

O Mother Race! to thee I bring
This pledge of faith unwavering,
This tribute to thy glory.
I know the pangs which thou didst feel,
When Slavery crushed thee with its heel,
With thy dear blood all gory.

Sad days were those--ah, sad indeed!
But through the land the fruitful seed
Of better times was growing.
The plant of freedom upward sprung,
And spread its leaves so fresh and young--
Its blossoms now are blowing.

On every hand in this fair land,
Proud Ethiope's swarthy children stand
Beside their fairer neighbor;
The forests flee before their stroke,
Their hammers ring, their forges smoke,--
They stir in honest labour.

They tread the fields where honour calls;
Their voices sound through senate halls
In majesty and power.

    A field in common share
        A partridge and a hare,
    And live in peaceful state,
    Till, woeful to relate!
    The hunters' mingled cry
    Compels the hare to fly.
    He hurries to his fort,
    And spoils almost the sport
    By faulting every hound
    That yelps upon the ground.
    At last his reeking heat
    Betrays his snug retreat.
Old Tray, with philosophic nose,
Snuffs carefully, and grows
    So certain, that he cries,
        "The hare is here; bow wow!"
        And veteran Ranger now,--
    The dog that never lies,--
    "The hare is gone," replies.
    Alas! poor, wretched hare,
    Back comes he to his lair,
    To meet destruction there!
    The partridge, void of fear,
    Begins her friend to ...

They bloom up the fresh, green trellis
In airy, vigorous ease,
And their fragrant, sensuous honey
Is best beloved of the bees.

Oh! the rose knows the dainty secret
How the morning-glory blows,
For the rose told me the secret,
And the jessamine told the rose.

And the jessamine said at midnight,
Ere the red cock woke and crew,
That the fays of queen Titania
Came there to bathe in the dew.

And the merry moonlight glistened
On wet, long, yellow hair,
And their feet on the flowers drowsy
Trod softer than any air.

And their petticoats, gay as bubbles,
They hung up every one
On the morning-glories' tendrils
Till their moonlight bath were done.

But the red cock crew too early,
And the fays left hurriedly,
And...

I.

    While winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
    And bar the doors wi' driving snaw,
        And hing us owre the ingle,
    I set me down to pass the time,
    And spin a verse or twa o' rhyme,
        In hamely westlin jingle.
    While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
        Ben to the chimla lug,
    I grudge a wee the great folks' gift,
        That live sae bien an' snug:
            I tent less and want less
                Their roomy fire-side;
            But hanker and canker
                To see their cursed pride.

II.

    It's hardly in a body's power
    To keep, at times, frae being sour,
        To see how things are shar'd;
    How best o' chiels are whiles in want.
    While coofs on countless thousands...

"Child of my love, why wearest thou
That pensive look and thoughtful brow?
Can'st gaze abroad on this world so fair
And yet thy glance be fraught with care?
Roses still bloom in glowing dyes,
Sunshine still fills our summer skies,
Earth is still lovely, nature glad -
Why dost thou look so lone and sad?"

"Ah! mother it once sufficed thy child
To cherish a bird or flow'ret wild;
To see the moonbeams the waters kiss,
Was enough to fill her heart with bliss;
Or o'er the bright woodland stream to bow,
But these things may not suffice her now."

"Perhaps 'tis music thou seekest, child?
Then list the notes of the song birds wild,
The gentle voice of the mountain breeze,
Whispering among the dark pine trees,
The surge sublime of the sounding main,...

On The Memorable Victory Gained By The Duke Over The Hollanders, June 3, 1665. And On Her Journey Afterwards Into The North.

    Madam,
    When, for our sakes, your hero you resign'd
    To swelling seas, and every faithless wind;
    When you released his courage, and set free
    A valour fatal to the enemy;
    You lodged your country's cares within your breast
    (The mansion where soft love should only rest):
    And, ere our foes abroad were overcome,
    The noblest conquest you had gain'd at home.
    Ah, what concerns did both your souls divide!
    Your honour gave us what your love denied:
    And 'twas for him much easier to subdue
    Those foes he fought with, than to part from you.
    That glorious day, which two such navies saw,
    As each...