Happiness

Sweet Singer that I loe the maist
O' ony, sin' wi' eager haste
I smacket bairn-lips ower the taste
O' hinnied sang,
I hail thee, though a blessed ghaist
In Heaven lang!

For weel I ken, nae cantie phrase,
Nor courtly airs, nor lairdly ways,
Could gar me freer blame, or praise,
Or proffer hand,
Where "Rantin' Robbie" and his lays
Thegither stand.

And sae these hamely lines I send,
Wi' jinglin' words at ilka end,
In echo o' the sangs that wend
Frae thee to me
Like simmer-brooks, wi mony a bend
O' wimplin' glee.

In fancy, as wi' dewy een,
I part the clouds aboon the scene
Where thou wast born, and peer atween,
I see nae spot
In a' the Hielands half sae green
And unforgot?

I see nae storied castle-hall...

Bright tulips, we do know
You had your coming hither,
And fading-time does show
That ye must quickly wither.

Your sisterhoods may stay,
And smile here for your hour;
But die ye must away,
Even as the meanest flower.

Come, virgins, then, and see
Your frailties, and bemoan ye;
For, lost like these, 'twill be
As time had never known ye.

Come, leave the loathed stage,
And the more loathsome age;
Where pride and impudence, in faction knit,
Usurp the chair of wit!
Indicting and arraigning every day
Something they call a play.
Let their fastidious, vain
Commission of the brain
Run on and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn;
They were not made for thee, less thou for them.

Say that thou pour'st them wheat,
And they will acorns eat;
'Twere simple fury still thyself to waste
On such as have no taste!
To offer them a surfeit of pure bread
Whose appetites are dead!
No, give them grains their fill,
Husks, draff to drink and swill:
If they love lees, and leave the lusty wine,
Envy them not, their palate's with the swine.

No doubt some mouldy tale,
Like Pericles, and st...

And is this Yarrow? This the stream
Of which my fancy cherished,
So faithfully, a waking dream?
An image that hath perished!
O that some Minstrel’s harp were near,
To utter notes of gladness,
And chase this silence from the air,
That fills my heart with sadness!

Yet why? a silvery current flows
With uncontrolled meanderings;
Nor have these eyes by greener hills
Been soothed, in all my wanderings.
And, through her depths, Saint Mary’s Lake
Is visibly delighted;
For not a feature of those hills
Is in the mirror slighted.

A blue sky bends o’er Yarrow vale,
Save where that pearly whiteness
Is round the rising sun diffused,
A tender hazy brightness;
Mild dawn of promise! that excludes
All profitless dejection;
Though not un...

Not for themselves did human kind
Contrive the parts by heaven assign'd
On life's wide scene to play:
Not Scipio's force, nor Cæsar's skill
Can conquer glory's arduous hill,
If fortune close the way.
Yet still the self-depending soul,
Though last and least in fortune's roll,
His proper sphere commands;
And knows what nature's seal bestow'd,
And sees, before the throne of God,
The rank in which he stands.

Who train'd by laws the future age,
Who rescu'd nations from the rage
Of partial, factious power,
My heart with distant homage views;
Content if thou, celestial Muse,
Did'st rule my natal hour.
Nor far beneath the hero's feet,
Nor from the legislator's seat
Stands far remote the bard.
Though not with public terrors crown'd,
...

The sun is wrapped within a pall of mist,
Moon of my life! enshroud yourself like him;
Sleep, damp your fires; be silent, dim,
And plunge to ennui's most profound abyss;

I love you this way! But, if you decline,
And choose to move from your eclipse to light,
To strut yourself where Folly throngs tonight,
Spring, charming dagger, from your sheath! That's fine!

Light up your eyes with flames of candle glow!
Light up the lust in yokels at the show!
I love your moods, no one of them the best;

Be night or dawn, do what you want to do;
I cry in every fibre of my flesh:
'0 my Beelzebub, I worship you!'

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmèd sleep:
    Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
    Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
    And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
    That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
    The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
    Upon her hand.

Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
    Till time ...

When dark December glooms the day,
And takes our autumn joys away;
When short and scant the sunbeam throws,
Upon the weary waste of snows,
A cold and profitless regard,
Like patron on a needy bard,
When silvan occupation's done,
And o'er the chimney rests the gun,
And hang, in idle trophy, near,
The game-pouch, fishing-rod, and spear;
When wiry terrier, rough and grim,
And greyhound, with his length of limb,
And pointer, now employed no more,
Cumber our parlour's narrow floor;
When in his stall the impatient steed
Is long condemned to rest and feed;
When from our snow-encircled home,
Scarce cares the hardiest step to roam,
Since path is none, save that to bring
The needful water from the spring;
When wrinkled news-page, thrice conned o'er,<...

It's my grief that I am not a little white duck,
And I'd swim over the sea to France or to Spain;
I would not stay in Ireland for one week only,
To be without eating, without drinking, without a full jug.

Without a full jug, without eating, without drinking,
Without a feast to get, without wine, without meat,
Without high dances, without a big name, without music;
There is hunger on me, and I astray this long time.

It's my grief that I am not an old crow,
I would sit for awhile up on the old branch,
I could satisfy my hunger, and I not as I am
With a grain of oats or a white potato

It's my grief that I am not a red fox,
Leaping strong and swift on the mountains,
Eating cocks and hens without pity,
Taking ducks and geese as a conquerer.

...

I stood upon a hill, and watched the death
    Of the day's turmoil. Still the glory spread
    Cloud-top to cloud-top, and each rearing head
Trembled to crimson. So a mighty breath
    From some wild Titan in a rising ire
    Might kindle flame in voicing his desire.

Soft stirred the evening air; the pine-crowned hills
    Glowed in an answering rapture where the flush
    Grew to a blood-drop, and the vesper hush
Moved in my soul, while from my life all ills
    Faded and passed away. God's voice was there
    And in my heart the silence was a prayer.

There was a day when to my fearfulness
    Was born a joy, when doubt was swept afar
    A shadow and a memory, and a star
Gleamed in my sky more bright for the distress.
    The stillness breathed ...

1.
Ye who intelligent the Third Heaven move,
Hear the discourse which is within my heart,
Which cannot be declared, it seems so new.
The Heaven whose course follows your power and art,
Oh, gentle creatures that ye are! me drew,
And therefore may I dare to speak to you,
Even of the life which now I live - and yet
I pray that ye will hear me when I cry,
And tell of mine own heart this novelty;
How the lamenting Spirit moans in it,
And how a voice there murmurs against her
Who came on the refulgence of your sphere.

2.
A sweet Thought, which was once the life within
This heavy heart, man a time and oft
Went up before our Father's feet, and there
It saw a glorious Lady throned aloft;
And its sweet talk of her my soul did win,
So that I said, 'T...

I asked if I should pray.
But the Brahmin said,
"pray for nothing, say
Every night in bed,
""I have been a king,
I have been a slave,
Nor is there anything.
Fool, rascal, knave,
That I have not been,
And yet upon my breast
A myriad heads have lain.'''
That he might Set at rest
A boy's turbulent days
Mohini Chatterjee
Spoke these, or words like these,
I add in commentary,
"Old lovers yet may have
All that time denied --
Grave is heaped on grave
That they be satisfied --
Over the blackened earth
The old troops parade,
Birth is heaped on Birth
That such cannonade
May thunder time away,
Birth-hour and death-hour meet,
Or, as great sages say,
Men dance on deathless feet.'

Love, Cupid, Gallantry, whate'er
We call that elf, seen every where,
Half frolicsome, half ennuyeuse,
Had chanced a country walk to choose;
When sudden, sweet and bright as May,
Young Beauty tripp'd across his way.--

"Upon my word," exclaims the boy,
"A lucky hit! this pretty toy
To pass an hour, with vapours haunted,
Is quite the thing I wish'd and wanted;
I do not so far condescend
As serious mischief to intend,
But just to show my powers of pleasing
In flattery, badinage, and teasing;
But should she, for young girls, poor things!
Are tender as yon insect's wings--
Should she mistake me, and grow fond,
Why, I'll grow serious--and abscond."

First, not abruptly to confound her,
With glance and smile he hovers round her:...

One of a hundred little rills--
Born in the hills,
Nourished with dews by the earth, and with tears by the sky,
Sang--"Who so mighty as I?
The farther I flow
The bigger I grow.
I, who was born but a little rill,
Now turn the big wheel of the mill,
Though the surly slave would rather stand still.
Old, and weed-hung, and grim,
I am not afraid of him;
For when I come running and dance on his toes,
With a creak and a groan the monster goes.
And turns faster and faster,
As he learns who is master,
Round and round,
Till the corn is ground,
And the miller smiles as he stands on the bank,
And knows he has me to thank.
Then when he swings the fine sacks of flour,
I feel my power;
But when the children enjoy their food,
I know I'm not only ...

A life more bright than the sun's face, bowed
Through stress of season and coil of cloud,
Sets: and the sorrow that casts out fear
Scarce deems him dead in his chill still shroud,
Dead on the breast of the dying year,
Poet and painter and friend, thrice dear
For love of the suns long set, for love
Of song that sets not with sunset here,
For love of the fervent heart, above
Their sense who saw not the swift light move
That filled with sense of the loud sun's lyre
The thoughts that passion was fain to prove
In fervent labour of high desire
And faith that leapt from its own quenched pyre
Alive and strong as the sun, and caught
From darkness light, and from twilight fire.
Passion, deep as the depths unsought
Whence faith's own hope may redeem us nought,
...

I know not wherefore, but mine eyes
    See bloom, where other eyes see blight.
They find a rainbow, a sunrise,
    Where others but discern deep night.

Men call me an enthusiast,
    And say I look through gilded haze:
Because where'er my gaze is cast,
    I see some thing that calls for praise.

I say, "Behold those lovely eyes -
    That tinted cheek of flower-like grace."
They answer in amused surprise:
    "We thought it such a common face."

I say, "Was ever scene more fair?
    I seem to walk in Eden's bowers."
They answer with a pitying air,
    "The weeds are choking out the flowers."

I know not wherefore, but God lent
    A deeper vision to my sight.
On whatsoe'er my gaze is bent
    I catch the beauty Infinite;

    Sorrow came with downcast eyes,
    And stole the lyre of love away.
    - VAN DYK.

[From ACKERMANN'S "Juvenile Forget-me-not"]

    Some two or three weeks before Valentine's day,
    Sir Winter grew kind, and, minded to play,
    Shook hands with Miss Flora, and woo'd her to spare
    A few pretty snowdrops to stick in his hair,
    Intending for truth, as he said, to resign
    His throne to Miss Spring and her priest Valentine;
    Which trifle he asked for before he set forth,
    To remind him of all when he got in the North;
    And this is the reason that snowdrops appear
    'Mid the cold of the Winter, so soon in the year.

    Flora complied, and, the instant she heard,
    Flew away with the news to each bachelor bird,
    Who i...

On an ancient vase representing in bas-relief the flight of Helen.


    This is the vase of Love
    Whose feet would ever rove
        O'er land and sea;
    Whose hopes forever seek
    Bright eyes, the vermeiled cheek,
        And ways made free.

    Do we not understand
    Why thou didst leave thy land,
        Thy spouse, thy hearth?
    Helen of Troy, Greek art
    Hath made our heart thy heart,
        Thy mirth our mirth.

    For Paris did appear,
    Curled hair and rosy ear
        And tapering hands.
    He spoke, the blood ran fast,
    He touched, and killed the past,
        And clove its bands.

    And this, I deem, is why
    The restless ages sigh,
        Helen, for thee.
    Whate'e...