Happiness

    I see the work of others, and my heart
    Sinks as my own achievement I compare.
    I will not be irresolute, nor despair,
    But battle strongly for my struggling art

    Convinced against conviction that my part
    Equally with my masters I can bear;
    Although their monuments are very fair,
    Enriched with statues, and I stand apart

    And gaze upon my little heap of stones
    Which I was given to build with, very few
    As yet laid into place, but I will lay

    Blind to these marble monuments and thrones,
    Building as though I confidently knew
    My ultimate end,, a stone in place each day.

CHARACTERS

The Father. The Child. Death. Angels.
        Two Travellers.

    *    *    *    *    *

The even settles still and deep,
In the cold sky the last gold burns,
Across the colour snow flakes creep.
Each one from grey to glory turns
Then flutters into nothingness;
The frost down falls with mighty stress
Through the swift cloud that parts on high;
The great stars shrivel into less
In the hard depth of the iron sky.

    *    *    *    *    *

The Child:

What is that light, dear father,
That light in the dark, dark sky?


The Father:

Those are the lights of the city
And the villages thereby.


The Child:

There must be fire in the city

APPLES

Come buy my fine wares,
Plums, apples, and pears.
A hundred a penny,
In conscience too many:
Come, will you have any?
My children are seven,
I wish them in Heaven;
My husband a sot,
With his pipe and his pot,
Not a farthing will gain them,
And I must maintain them.



ASPARAGUS

    Ripe 'sparagrass
    Fit for lad or lass,
To make their water pass:
    O, 'tis pretty picking
    With a tender chicken!



ONIONS


        Come, follow me by the smell,
        Here are delicate onions to sell;
        I promise to use you well.
        They make the blood warmer,
        You'll feed like a farmer;
For this is every cook's opinion,
No savoury dish without an on...

Sweet wreck of loveliness! alas, how soon
The sad brief summer of thy joys hath fled:
How sorrows Friendship for thy hapless doom,
Thy beauty faded, and thy hopes all dead.
Oh! 'twas that beauty's power which first destroy'd
Thy mind's serenity; its charms but led
The faithless friend, that thy pure love enjoy'd,
To tear the beauteous blossom from its bed.
How reason shudders at thy frenzied air!
To see thee smile, with fancy's dreams possess'd;
Or shrink, the frozen image of despair.
Or, love-enraptured, chant thy griefs to rest:
Oh! cease that mournful voice, affliction's child,
My heart but bleeds to hear thy musings wild.

    Right here at home, boys, in old Hoosierdom,
    Where strangers allus joke us when they come,
    And brag o' their old States and interprize -
    Yit settle here; and 'fore they realize,
    They're "hoosier" as the rest of us, and live
    Right here at home, boys, with their past fergive!

    Right here at home, boys, is the place, I guess,
    Fer me and you and plain old happiness:
    We hear the World's lots grander - likely so, -
    We'll take the World's word fer it and not go. -
    We know its ways aint our ways - so we'll stay
    Right here at home, boys, where we know the way.

    Right here at home, boys, where a well-to-do
    Man's plenty rich enough - and knows it, too,
    And's got a' extry dollar, any t...

Noon's fervid hour perchance six thousand miles
From hence is distant; and the shadowy cone
Almost to level on our earth declines;
When from the midmost of this blue abyss
By turns some star is to our vision lost.
And straightway as the handmaid of the sun
Puts forth her radiant brow, all, light by light,
Fade, and the spangled firmament shuts in,
E'en to the loveliest of the glittering throng.
Thus vanish'd gradually from my sight
The triumph, which plays ever round the point,
That overcame me, seeming (for it did)
Engirt by that it girdeth. Wherefore love,
With loss of other object, forc'd me bend
Mine eyes on Beatrice once again.

If all, that hitherto is told of her,
Were in one praise concluded, 't were too weak
To furnish out this turn. Mine ey...

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee.

Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world the youthful Spring.
The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array
Welcome the coming of the long'd-for May.
Now all things smile, only my love doth lour;
Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power
To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold
Her heart congeal'd, and makes her pity cold.

The ox, which lately did for shelter fly
Into the sta...

I have passed the day 'mid the forest gay,
    In its gorgeous autumn dyes,
Its tints as bright and as fair to the sight
    As the hues of our sunset skies;
And the sun's glad rays veiled by golden haze,
    Streamed down 'neath its arches grand,
And with magic power made scene and hour
    Like a dream of Faerie Land.

The emerald sheen of the maple green
    Is turned to deep, rich red;
And the boughs entwine with the crimson vine
    That is climbing overhead;
While, like golden sheaves, the saffron leaves
    Of the sycamore strew the ground,
'Neath birches old, clad in shimmering gold,
    Or the ash with red berries crowned.

Stately and tall, o'er its sisters all,
    Stands the poplar, proud and lone,
Every silvery leaf in restless...

O come Georgiana! the rose is full blown,
The riches of Flora are lavishly strown,
The air is all softness, and crystal the streams,
The West is resplendently clothed in beams.


O come! let us haste to the freshening shades,
The quaintly carv'd seats, and the opening glades;
Where the faeries are chanting their evening hymns,
And in the last sun-beam the sylph lightly swims.


And when thou art weary I'll find thee a bed,
Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head:
And there Georgiana I'll sit at thy feet,
While my story of love I enraptur'd repeat.


So fondly I'll breathe, and so softly I'll sigh,
Thou wilt think that some amorous Zephyr is nigh:
Yet no, as I breathe I will press thy fair knee,
And then thou wilt know that the sigh co...

Why should we weep or mourn, Angelic boy,
For such thou wert ere from our sight removed,
Holy, and ever dutiful beloved
From day to day with never-ceasing joy,
And hopes as dear as could the heart employ
In aught to earth pertaining? Death has proved
His might, nor less his mercy, as behoved,
Death conscious that he only could destroy
The bodily frame. That beauty is laid low
To moulder in a far-off field of Rome;
But Heaven is now, blest Child, thy Spirit's home:
When such divine communion, which we know,
Is felt, thy Roman-burial place will be
Surely a sweet remembrancer of Thee.

I

You have heard "a Spanish Lady
How she wooed an English man;"
Hear now of a fair Armenian,
Daughter of the proud Soldan;
How she loved a Christian slave, and told her pain
By word, look, deed, with hope that he might love again.

II

"Pluck that rose, it moves my liking,"
Said she, lifting up her veil;
"Pluck it for me, gentle gardener,
Ere it wither and grow pale."
"Princess fair, I till the ground, but may not take
From twig or bed an humbler flower, even for your sake!"

III

"Grieved am I, submissive Christian!
To behold thy captive state;
Women, in your land, may pity
(May they not?) the unfortunate."
"Yes, kind Lady! otherwise man could not bear
Life, which to every one that breathes is full of care."
...

    Know you her secret none can utter?
        Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?
    Still on the spire the pigeons flutter,
        Still by the gateway flits the gown;
    Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,
        Faces of stone look down.

    Faces of stone, and stonier faces--
        Some from library windows wan
    Forth on her gardens, her green spaces,
        Peer and turn to their books anon.
    Hence, my Muse, from the green oases
        Gather the tent, begone!

Nay, should she by the pavement linger
        Under the rooms where once she played,
    Who from the feast would rise to fling her
        One poor sou for her serenade?
    One short laugh for the antic finger
        Thrumming a lute-strin...

1711-12

This day (the year I dare not tell)
    Apollo play'd the midwife's part;
Into the world Corinna fell,
    And he endued her with his art.

But Cupid with a Satyr comes;
    Both softly to the cradle creep;
Both stroke her hands, and rub her gums,
    While the poor child lay fast asleep.

Then Cupid thus: "This little maid
    Of love shall always speak and write;"
"And I pronounce," the Satyr said,
    "The world shall feel her scratch and bite."

Her talent she display'd betimes;
    For in a few revolving moons,
She seem'd to laugh and squall in rhymes,
    And all her gestures were lampoons.

At six years old, the subtle jade
    Stole to the pantry-door, and found
The butler with my lady's maid:

Where is the waiting-time?
    Where are the fears?
Gone with the winter's rime,
    The bygone years.

O'er life's plain, lone and vast,
    Slow treads the morn,
Night shades have moved and passed,
    Joy's day is born.

[From Farmer Harrington's Calendar.]

FEBRUARY 5, 18 - .

        Want - want - want - want! O God! forgive the crime,
        If I, asleep, awake, at any time,
        Upon my bended knees, my back, my feet,
        In church, on bed, on treasure-lighted street,
        Have ever hinted, or, much less, have pleaded
        That I hadn't ten times over all I needed!
        Lord save my soul! I never knew the way
        That people starve along from day to day;
        May gracious Heaven forgive me, o'er and o'er,
        That I have never found these folks before!

        Of course some news of it has come my way,
        Like a faint echo on a drowsy day;
        At home I "gave," whene'er by suffering grieved,
        And called i...

Good and great God, can I not think of thee
But it must straight my melancholy be?
Is it interpreted in me disease
That, laden with my sins, I seek for ease?
Oh be thou witness, that the reins dost know
And hearts of all, if I be sad for show,
And judge me after; if I dare pretend
To ought but grace or aim at other end.
As thou art all, so be thou all to me,
First, midst, and last, converted one, and three;
My faith, my hope, my love; and in this state
My judge, my witness, and my advocate.
Where have I been this while exil'd from thee?
And whither rap'd, now thou but stoop'st to me?
Dwell, dwell here still. O, being everywhere,
How can I doubt to find thee ever here?
I know my state, both full of shame and scorn,
Conceiv'd in sin, and unto labour borne,<...

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 ...

Night, with all thine eyes look down!
Darkness shed its holiest dew!
When ever smiled the inconstant moon
On a pair so true?
Hence, coy hour! and quench thy light,
Lest eyes see their own delight!
Hence, swift hour! and thy loved flight
Oft renew.

BOYS:
O joy! O fear! what may be done
In the absence of the sun?
Come along!
The golden gates of sleep unbar!
When strength and beauty meet together,
Kindles their image like a star
In a sea of glassy weather.
Hence, coy hour! and quench thy light,
Lest eyes see their own delight!
Hence, swift hour! and thy loved flight
Oft renew.

GIRLS:
O joy! O fear! what may be done
In the absence of the sun?
Come along!
Fairies! sprites! and angels, keep her!
Holiest powers...