Friendship

When winter covering all the ground
Hides every sign of Spring, sir.
However you may look around,
Pray what will then you sing, sir?

The Spring was here last year I know,
And many bards did flute, sir;
I shall not fear a little snow
Forbid me from my lute, sir.

If words grow dull and rhymes grow rare,
I'll sing of Spring's farewell, sir.
For every season steals an air,
Which has a Springtime smell, sir.

But if upon the other side,
With passionate longing burning,
Will seek the half unjeweled tide,
And sing of Spring's returning.

The winter is gone; and at first Jack and I were sad,
Because of the snow-man's melting, but now we are glad;
For the spring has come, and it's warm, and we're allowed to garden in the afternoon;
And summer is coming, and oh, how lovely our flowers will be in June!
We are so fond of flowers, it makes us quite happy to think
Of our beds--all colours--blue, white, yellow, purple, and pink,
Scarlet, lilac, and crimson! And we're fond of sweet scents as well,
And mean to have pinks, roses, sweet peas, mignonette, clove carnations, musk, and everything good to smell;
Lavender, rosemary, and we should like a lemon-scented verbena, and a big myrtle tree!
And then if we could get an old "preserved-ginger" pot, and some bay-salt, we could make _pot-pourri_.
Jack and I have a garden, though it's not...

Shut not so soon; the dull-eyed night
Has not as yet begun
To make a seizure on the light,
Or to seal up the sun.

No marigolds yet closed are;
No shadows great appear;
Nor doth the early shepherds' star
Shine like a spangle here.

Stay but till my Julia close
Her life-begetting eye,
And let the whole world then dispose
Itself to live or die.

    Low hidden in among the forest trees
        An artist's tilted easel, ankle-deep
    In tousled ferns and mosses, and in these
        A fluffy water-spaniel, half asleep
            Beside a sketch-book and a fallen hat -
            A little wicker flask tossed into that.

    A sense of utter carelessness and grace
        Of pure abandon in the slumb'rous scene, -
    As if the June, all hoydenish of face,
        Had romped herself to sleep there on the green,
            And brink and sagging bridge and sliding stream
            Were just romantic parcels of her dream.

Sundown--and silence--and deep peace,--
Night's benediction and release;--
The tints of day die out and cease.

This morn I heard the Sabbath bells
Across the breezy upland swells;--
My path lay down the woodland dells.

To-day, I said, the dust of creeds,
The wind of words reach not my needs;--
I worship with the birds and weeds.

From height to height the sunbeam sprung,
The wild vine, touched with vermeil, clung,
The mountain brooklet leapt and sung.

The white lamp of the lily made
A tender light in deepest shade,--
The solitary place was glad.

The very air was tremulous,--
I felt its deep and reverent hush,--
God burned before me in the bush!

And nature prayed with folded palm,
And looks that wear perpetual c...

Ye Lords and Commons, Men of Wit,
And Pleasure about Town;
Read this ere you translate one Bit
Of Books of high Renown.

Beware of Latin Authors all!
Nor think your Verses Sterling,
Though with a Golden Pen you scrawl,
And scribble in a Berlin:

For not the Desk with silver Nails,
Nor Bureau of Expense,
Nor standish well japann'd avails,
To writing of good Sense.

Hear how a Ghost in dead of Night,
With saucer Eyes of Fire,
In woeful wise did sore affright
A Wit and courtly 'Squire.

Rare Imp and Phoebus, hopeful Youth
Like Puppy tame that uses
To fetch and carry, in his Mouth,
The Works of all the Muses.

Ah! why did he write Poetry,
That hereto was so civil;
And sell his soul for vanity,
To Rhyming ...

Too late! though flowerets round me blow,
And clearing skies shine bright and fair;
Their genial warmth avails not now
Thou art not here the beam to share.

Through many a dark and dreary day,
We journeyed on 'midst grief and gloom;
And now at length the cheering ray
Breaks forth, it only gilds thy tomb.

Our days of hope and youth are past,
Our short-lived joys for ever flown;
And now when Fortune smiles at last,
She finds me cheerless, chilled alone!

Ah! no; too late the boon is given,
Alike the frowns and smiles of Fate;
The broken heart by sorrow riv'n,
But murmurs now, 'Too late! Too late!'

Strings in the earth and air
Make music sweet;
Strings by the river where
The willows meet.

There’s music along the river
For Love wanders there,
Pale flowers on his mantle,
Dark leaves on his hair.

All softly playing,
With head to the music bent,
And fingers straying
Upon an instrument.

The Farmer Discourses of his Son.

Tom was goin' for a poet, an' said he'd a poet be;
One of these long-haired fellers a feller hates to see;
One of these chaps forever fixin' things cute and clever;
Makin' the world in gen'ral step 'long to tune an' time,
An' cuttin' the earth into slices an' saltin' it down into rhyme.

Poets are good for somethin', so long as they stand at the head:
But poetry's worth whatever it fetches in butter an' bread.
An' many a time I've said it: it don't do a fellow credit,
To starve with a hole in his elbow, an' be considered a fool,
So after he's dead, the young ones 'll speak his pieces in school.

An' Tom, he had an opinion that Shakspeare an' all the rest,
With all their winter clothin', couldn't make him a decent vest;
But th...

Roses all the rosy way!
    Roses to the rosier west
Where the roses of the day
    Cling to night's unrosy breast!

Thou who mak'st the roses, why
    Give to every leaf a thorn?
On thy rosy highway I
    Still am by thy roses torn!

Pardon! I will not mistake
    These good thorns that make me fret!
Goads to urge me, stings to wake,
    For my freedom they are set.

Yea, on one steep mountain-side,
    Climbing to a fancied fold,
Roses grasped had let me slide
    But the thorns did keep their hold.

Out of darkness light is born,
    Out of weakness make me strong:
One glad day will every thorn
    Break into a rose of song.

Though like sparrow sit thy bird
    Lonely on the house-top dark,
By the rosy...

If I had ever thought to write in praise
Of little children and their simple ways,
Far rather had I fashioned cradle verse
To rock to slumber, or the songs a nurse
Might croon above the baby on her breast.
Setting her charge's short-lived woes at rest.
For much more useful are such trifling tasks
Than that which sad misfortune this day asks:
To weep o'er thy deaf grave, dear maiden mine.
And wail the harshness of grim Proserpine.
But now I have no choice of subject: then
I shunned a theme scarce fitting riper men,
And now disaster drives me on by force
To songs unheeded by the great concourse
Of mortals. Verses that I would not sing
The living, to the dead I needs must bring.
Yet though I dry the marrow from my bones,
Weeping another's death, my grief ato...

I send you here a sort of allegory–
For you will understand it–of a soul,
A sinful soul possess’d of many gifts,
A spacious garden full of flowering weeds,
A glorious devil, large in heart and brain,
That did love beauty only–beauty seen
In all varieties of mould and mind–
And knowledge for its beauty; or if good,
Good only for its beauty, seeing not
That Beauty, Good, and Knowledge are three sisters
That doat upon each other, friends to man,
Living together under the same roof,
And never can be sunder’d without tears.
And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be
Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie
Howling in outer darkness. Not for this
Was common clay ta’en from the common earth
Moulded by God, and temper’d with the tears
Of angels to the ...

        I into life so full of love was sent
    That all the shadows which fall on the way
    Of every human being could not stay,
        But fled before the light my spirit lent.

        I saw the world through gold and crimson dyes:
    Men sighed and said, "Those rosy hues will fade
    As you pass on into the glare and shade!"
        Still beautiful the way seems to mine eyes.

        They said, "You are too jubilant and glad;
    The world is full of sorrow and of wrong.
    Full soon your lips shall breathe forth sighs - not song."
        The day wears on, and yet I am not sad.

        They said, "You love too largely, and you must,
    Through wound on wound, grow bitter to your kind."
    They were false prophets; day by day I find
  ...

The world is narrow and ways are short, and our lives are dull and slow,
For little is new where the crowds resort, and less where the wanderers go;
Greater, or smaller, the same old things we see by the dull road-side,
And tired of all is the spirit that sings of the days when the world was wide.

When the North was hale in the march of Time, and the South and the West were new,
And the gorgeous East was a pantomime, as it seemed in our boyhood's view;
When Spain was first on the waves of change, and proud in the ranks of pride,
And all was wonderful, new and strange in the days when the world was wide.

Then a man could fight if his heart were bold, and win if his faith were true,
Were it love, or honour, or power, or gold, or all that our hearts pursue;
Could live to the world...

Into the rock the road is cut full deep,
    At its low ledges village children play,
From its high rifts fountains of leafage weep,
        And silvery birches sway.

The boldest climbers have its face forsworn,
    Sheer as a wall it doth all daring flout;
But benchlike at its base, and weather-worn,
        A narrow ledge leans out.

There do they set forth feasts in dishes rude
    Wrought of the rush - wild strawberries on the bed
Left into August, apples brown and crude,
        Cress from the cold well-head.

Shy gamesome girls, small daring imps of boys,
    But gentle, almost silent at their play -
Their fledgling daws, for food, make far more noise
        Ranged on the ledge than they.

The children and the purple martins share

Bland as the morning breath of June
The southwest breezes play;
And, through its haze, the winter noon
Seems warm as summer’s day.
The snow-plumed Angel of the North
Has dropped his icy spear;
Again the mossy earth looks forth,
Again the streams gush clear.

The fox his hillside cell forsakes,
The muskrat leaves his nook,
The bluebird in the meadow brakes
Is singing with the brook.
“Bear up, O Mother Nature!” cry
Bird, breeze, and streamlet free;
“Our winter voices prophesy
Of summer days to thee!”

So, in those winters of the soul,
By bitter blasts and drear
O’erswept from Memory’s frozen pole,
Will sunny days appear.
Reviving Hope and Faith, they show
The soul its living powers,
And how beneath the winter’s snow
L...

How sweet to rove, from summer sun-beams veil'd,
    In gloomy dingles; or to trace the tide
    Of wandering brooks, their pebbly beds that chide;
    To feel the west-wind cool refreshment yield,
That comes soft creeping o'er the flowery field,
    And shadow'd waters; in whose bushy side
    The Mountain-Bees their fragrant treasure hide
    Murmuring; and sings the lonely Thrush conceal'd! -
Then, Ceremony, in thy gilded halls,
    Where forc'd and frivolous the themes arise,
    With bow and smile unmeaning, O! how palls
At thee, and thine, my sense! - how oft it sighs
    For leisure, wood-lanes, dells, and water-falls;
    And feels th' untemper'd heat of sultry skies!

    The river is a ribbon wide,
    The falls a snowy feather,
    And stretching far on ilka side
    Are hills abloom wi' heather.
    The wind comes loitering frae the west
    By weight o' sweets retarded;
    The sea-mist hangs on Arran's crest,
    A Golden Fleece unguarded.

    We ken ye weel, ye fond young pair,
    That hand in hand do tarry;
    The youth is Burns, the Bard o' Ayr,
    The lass is Highland Mary.
    He tells her they will never pairt -
    'Tis life and luve taegither -
    The world has got the song by hairt
    He sang among the heather.

    'Twas lang ago, lang, lang ago,
    Yet all remember dearly
    The eyes, the hair, the brow o' snow
    O' her he luved sae dearly.
    And lads still woo their...