Heartbreak

They all climbed up on a high board-fence -
Nine little Goblins, with green-glass eyes -
Nine little Goblins that had no sense,
And couldn't tell coppers from cold mince pies;
    And they all climbed up on the fence, and sat -
    And I asked them what they were staring at.

And the first one said, as he scratched his head
With a queer little arm that reached out of his ear
And rasped its claws in his hair so red -
"This is what this little arm is fer!"
    And he scratched and stared, and the next one said,
    "How on earth do you scratch your head?"

And he laughed like the screech of a rusty hinge -
Laughed and laughed till his face grew black;
And when he choked, with a final twinge
Of his stifling laughter, he thumped his back
    With ...

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves - goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is -
Chríst - for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

ONE Spring-morning bright and fair,

Roam'd a shepherdess and sang;
Young and beauteous, free from care,

Through the fields her clear notes rang:
So, Ia, Ia! le ralla, &c.

Of his lambs some two or three

Thyrsis offer'd for a kiss;
First she eyed him roguishly,

Then for answer sang but this:
So, Ia, Ia! le ralla, &c.

Ribbons did the next one offer,

And the third, his heart so true
But, as with the lambs, the scoffer

Laugh'd at heart and ribbons too,
Still 'twas Ia! le ralla, &c.

From an epistle written when the thermometer stood at 98 degrees in the shade.



Oh! for the temperate airs that blow
    Upon that darling of the sea,
Where neither sunshine, rain, nor snow,
    For three days hold supremacy;
But ever-varying skies contend
The blessings of all climes to lend,
To make that tiny, wave-rocked isle,
In never-fading beauty smile.
England, oh England! for the breeze
That slowly stirs thy forest-trees!
Thy ferny brooks, thy mossy fountains,
Thy beechen woods, thy heathery mountains,
Thy lawny uplands, where the shadow
    Of many a giant oak is sleeping;
The tangled copse, the sunny meadow,
    Through which the summer rills run weeping.
Oh, land of flowers! while sinking here
    Beneath the dog-star of th...

Alas! upon some starry height,
The Gods of Excellence to please,
This hand of mine will never smite
The Harp of High Serenities.
Mere minstrel of the street am I,
To whom a careless coin you fling;
But who, beneath the bitter sky,
Blue-lipped, yet insolent of eye,
Can shrill a song of Spring;
A song of merry mansard days,
The cheery chimney-tops among;
Of rolics and of roundelays
When we were young . . . when we were young;
A song of love and lilac nights,
Of wit, of wisdom and of wine;
Of Folly whirling on the Heights,
Of hunger and of hope divine;
Of Blanche, Suzette and Celestine,
And all that gay and tender band
Who shared with us the fat, the lean,
The hazard of Illusion-land;
When scores of Philistines we slew
As mightily wi...

"What is life?" I asked a lad,
As on with joyful bound,
He went to join the merry troop,
Upon the cricket ground.

He paus'd at once with pleasant look,
This bright-ey'd, laughing boy,
"Why, life," said he, "is sport and mirth;
With me 'tis mostly joy.

"The tasks which I receive at school,
I feel to be unkind;
But when I get my ball and bat,
I drive them from my mind.

"With other boys I run and shout,
I throw and catch the ball,
Oh, life is a right jolly thing,
To take it all in all."

"And what is life?" I asked a maid,
Who trod, as if on air,
So lightly she did trip along,
So bright she look'd, and fair.

The maiden stopp'd her graceful steps,
And to my words replied,
"Oh, life's a lovely dream," she s...

Trampled yet red is the last of the embers,
Red the last cloud of a sun that has set;
What of your sleeping though Flanders remembers,
What of your waking, if England forget?

Why should you share in the hearts that we harden,
In the shame of our nature, who see it and live?
How more than the godly the greedy can pardon,
How well and how quickly the hungry forgive.

Ah, well if the soil of the stranger had wrapped you,
While the lords that you served and the friends that you knew
Hawk in the marts of the tyrants that trapped you,
Tout in the shops of the butchers that slew.

Why should you wake for a realm that is rotten,
Stuffed with their bribes and as dead to their debts?
Sleep and forget us, as we have forgotten;
For Flanders remembers and Englan...

("L'enfant chantait.")

[Bk. I. xxiii., Paris, January, 1835.]


The small child sang; the mother, outstretched on the low bed,
With anguish moaned, - fair Form pain should possess not long;
For, ever nigher, Death hovered around her head:
I hearkened there this moan, and heard even there that song.

The child was but five years, and, close to the lattice, aye
Made a sweet noise with games and with his laughter bright;
And the wan mother, aside this being the livelong day
Carolling joyously, coughed hoarsely all the night.

The mother went to sleep 'mong them that sleep alway;
And the blithe little lad began anew to sing...
Sorrow is like a fruit: God doth not therewith weigh
Earthward the branch strong yet but for the blossoming.

N...

Oh, the truant boy to the woods has gone,
And you ne'er, alas, can find him,
He's strapp'd his empty school bag on,
For his books are left behind him.

He's gone to shake the beechnuts down
From a height - 'twould make you shiver,
And stain his hands a gipsy brown,
With the walnuts by the river.

"Away from school!" said this youth so free,
"Tho' all the world should praise thee,
I'd rather climb this walnut tree,
Because it's such a daisy."
The truant fell, but the stunning shock
Could not bring his proud soul under;
"I'll try again, and here I go
To get those nuts, by thunder!"

So he tightly strapp'd his bag so neat,
This soul of spunk and bravery,
And said, "If I in this get beat,
I will go back to slavery."
But he climb'...

There’s a nice little hatpeg that hangs on the wall
That long from its owner has parted,
And though he is wandering far beyond call
Like him it is always true hearted.

Many seasons have passed since his limp Cabbage Tree
Has dangled upon the old rack
But that one single peg, always vacant must be,
For its owner will surely come back.

And though in far countries, he sadly doth roam
While hunger had forced him to beg
Till fortune grows kindly, and sends him back home,
There’s an Angel who watches that peg.

One afternoon, after a long weary tramp,
And hard grafting, to which he’s no stranger,
He found, that a letter, had come to the camp,
To warn him, his peg was in danger;

The words that he used, are best shown by a dash
As he swore ...

When hill and dale, long years ago,
Lay clad in nature's dress,
And flourish'd the primeval pomp
Of nature's wilderness,

A huntsman and his hound would roam,
Where fed the timid deer,
And where the partridge's drum, or whirr,
Brought music to his ear.

In sooth, he heard all forest sounds
With real sportsman's joy;
And here he always pleasure found,
With little of alloy.

The pigeon's coo, the squirrel's chirp,
The wild-bird's thrilling lay,
Brought freshen'd pleasure to his heart,
At ev'ry op'ning day.

But music sweeter far than aught
In wood or vale around,
Was the loud crackling of the deer,
Or baying of his hound.

Full many a deer his steady aim,
With faithful rifle slew,
But, faithful as his rifle ...

There's been a young stranger at our house,
A baby whom nobody knew;
Who hated his brother, his father, his mother,
And made them aware of it, too.

He stayed with us nearly a fortnight
And carried a grouch all the while,
Nor promise nor present could make him look pleasant;
He hadn't the power to smile.

He cried when he couldn't have something;
He cried just as hard when he could;
Kind words by the earful but made him more tearful,
And scoldings did just as much good.

He stormed when his meals weren't ready,
And when they were ready, he screamed.
He went to bed growling, got up again howling
And quarreled and snarled as he dreamed.

He's gone, and the child we are fond of
Is back, just as nice as of old.
But I hope to be in som...

Sweete, sleepe so arm'd with Beauties arrowes darting,
Sleepe in thy Beauty, Beauty in sleepe appeareth;
Sleepe lightning Beauty, Beauty sleepes, darknes cleereth,
Sleepes wonder Beauty, wonders to worlds imparting.
Sleep watching Beauty, Beauty waking, sleepe guarding
Beauty in sleepe, sleepe in Beauty charmed,
Sleepes aged coldnes with Beauties fire warmed,
Sleepe with delight, Beauty with loue rewarding.
Sleepe and Beauty, with equall forces stryuing,
Beauty her strength vnto sleepes weaknes lending,
Sleepe with Beauty, Beauty with sleepe contending,
Yet others force the others force reuiuing,
    And others foe the others foe imbrace.
    Myne eyes beheld thys conflict in thy face.

Let me sleep this night away,
Till the dawning of the day;
Then at th' opening of mine eyes
I, and all the world, shall rise.

Air - "The Mill, Mill, O."



I.

    When wild war's deadly blast was blawn
        And gentle peace returning,
    Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless,
        And mony a widow mourning;
    I left the lines and tented field,
        Where lang I'd been a lodger,
    My humble knapsack a' my wealth,
        A poor and honest sodger.

II.

    A leal, light heart was in my breast,
    My hand unstain'd wi' plunder;
    And for fair Scotia, hame again,
        I cheery on did wander.
    I thought upon the banks o' Coil,
        I thought upon my Nancy,
    I thought upon the witching smile
        That caught my youthful fancy.

III.

    At length I reach'd the bonny glen,
        Where ear...

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night,
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

    Jacky, come give me thy fiddle
        If ever thou mean to thrive;
    Nay, I'll not give my fiddle,
        To any man alive.

    If I should give my fiddle,
        They'll think that I'm gone mad,
    For many a joyful day
        My fiddle and I have had.

On a roof in the Old City
Laundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight:
The white sheet of a woman who is my enemy,
The towel of a man who is my enemy,
To wipe off the sweat of his brow.

In the sky of the Old City
A kite.
At the other end of the string,
A child
I can't see
Because of the wall.

We have put up many flags,
They have put up many flags.
To make us think that they're happy.
To make them think that we're happy.