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    "As friend," she said, "I will be kind,
    My sympathy will rarely fail,
    My eyes to many faults be blind -
    As wife, I'll lecture, scold, and rail,

    "Be full of moods, a shrew one day,
    A thing of tenderness the next,
    Will kiss and wound - a woman's way
    That long the soul of man has vext.

    "You've been a true, unselfish man,
    Have thought upon my good alway,
    Been strong to shield, and wise to plan,
    But ah! there is a change to-day.

    "There's mastery in your 'Be my wife!'
    For self stands up and eagerly
    Claims all my love, and all my life,
    The body and the soul of me.

    "Come, call me friend, and own me such,
    Nor count it such a wondrous thing
    To hold me close, thr...

And do I see some cause a hope to feede,
Or doth the tedious burden of long wo
In weaken'd minds quick apprehending breed
Of euerie image which may comfort shew?
I cannot brag of word, much lesse of deed,
Fortune wheeles still with me in one sort slow;
My wealth no more, and no whit lesse my need;
Desier still on stilts of Feare doth go.
And yet amid all feares a hope there is,
Stolne to my hart since last faire night, nay day,
Stellas eyes sent to me the beames of blisse,
Looking on me while I lookt other way:
But when mine eyes backe to their heau'n did moue,
They fled with blush which guiltie seem'd of loue.

The town has opened to the sun.
Like a flat red lily with a million petals
She unfolds, she comes undone.

A sharp sky brushes upon
The myriad glittering chimney-tips
As she gently exhales to the sun.

Hurrying creatures run
Down the labyrinth of the sinister flower.
What is it they shun?

A dark bird falls from the sun.
It curves in a rush to the heart of the vast
Flower: the day has begun.

Translation From The Eneid, Book I.

The god looked out upon the troubled deep
Waked into tumult from its placid sleep;
The flame of anger kindles in his eye
As the wild waves ascend the lowering sky;
He lifts his head above their awful height
And to the distant fleet directs his sight,
Now borne aloft upon the billow's crest,
Struck by the bolt or by the winds oppressed,
And well he knew that Juno's vengeful ire
Frowned from those clouds and sparkled in that fire.
On rapid pinions as they whistled by
He calls swift Zephyrus and Eurus nigh
Is this your glory in a noble line
To leave your confines and to ravage mine?
Whom I - but let these troubled waves subside -
Another tempest and I'll quell your pride!
Go - bear our message to your master's ear,

The beach was crowded.    Pausing now and then,
He groped and fiddled doggedly along,
His worn face glaring on the thoughtless throng
The stony peevishness of sightless men.
He seemed scarce older than his clothes.    Again,
Grotesquing thinly many an old sweet song,
So cracked his fiddle, his hand so frail and wrong,
You hardly could distinguish one in ten.
He stopped at last, and sat him on the sand,
And, grasping wearily his bread-winner,
Stared dim towards the blue immensity,
Then leaned his head upon his poor old hand.
He may have slept:    he did not speak nor stir:
His gesture spoke a vast despondency.

"Liberty!" Is that the cry, then?
    We have heard it oft of yore.
Once it had, we think, a meaning;
    Let us hear it now no more.

We have read what history tells us
    Of its heroes, martyrs too.
Doubtless they were very splendid,
    But they're not for me and you.

There were Greeks who fought and perished,
    Won from Persians deathless graves.
Had we lived then, we're aware that
    We'd have been those same Greeks' slaves!

Then a Roman came who loved us;
    Caesar gave men tongues and swords.
Crying "Liberty," they fought him,
    Cato and his cut-throat lords.

When he'd give a broader franchise,
    Lift the mangled nations bowed,
Crying "Liberty!" they killed him,
    Brutus and his pandar crowd.
...

One stormy morn I chanced to meet
    A lassie in the town;
Her locks were like the ripened wheat,
    Her laughing eyes were brown.
I watched her as she tripped along
    Till madness filled my brain,
And then, and then, I know 'twas wrong,
    I kissed her in the rain!

With rain-drops shining on her cheek,
    Like dew-drops on a rose,
The little lassie strove to speak
    My boldness to oppose;
She strove in vain, and quivering
    Her fingers stole in mine;
And then the birds began to sing,
    The sun began to shine.

Oh, let the clouds grow dark above,
    My heart is light below;
'Tis always summer when we love,
    However winds may blow;
And I'm as proud as any prince,
    All honors I disdain:
She says I am he...

    Lord Jesus,
    Oh, ease us
    Of Self that oppresses,
    Annoys and distresses
    Body and brain
    With dull pain!
    Thou never,
    Since ever,
    Save one moment only,
    Wast left, or wast lonely:
    We are alone,
    And make moan.

    Far parted,
    Dull-hearted,
    We wander, sleep-walking,
    Mere shadows, dim-stalking:
    Orphans we roam,
    Far from home.

    Oh new man,
    Sole human,
    God's son, and our brother,
    Give each to the other--
    No one left out
    In cold doubt!

    High Father,
    Oh gather
    Thy sons and thy daughters,
    Through fires and through waters,
    Home to the nest
    Of thy breast!

    There under<...

    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...

Thou lovely bud, with many weeds surrounded,
I once again address thee with a song;
To cheer thee up 'gainst Envy's adder-tongue
That deeply oft thy reputation wounded,
And did thy tender blossom mickle wrong.
But, look thou up!--'tis known in nature's law
That serpents seek the honey-hoarding bee,
Rosemary's sweets the loathsome toad will draw,
So beauty curdles envy's look on thee.
Fain would the peacock's tail the bow express
Which paints the clouds so sweet in April's rain,
And just the same, that imp of ugliness
Mimics thy lovely blossom,--but in vain;
And fain would poison what he can't possess.

I thought it pleasant when a manly sire
Weary of foreign travel, at the door
Of his own cottage left his dusty staff,
And entering in, sat down with those he loved
Beside the hearth of home; - and pleasant, too,
When a fond mother, absent for a day,
At eve returning, from the sunset hill
That overlooked her cot, descried her boys
Flying with joyous feet along the path
To greet her coming; and, with clasping hands
Of baby welcome, lead her through the gate
Of her sweet home.

                                    Pleasant I deemed it, too,
When a young man, a wanderer for years
From those he loved, at length sat down again
With sire and mother in the twilight hour
At home; - and when a gentle daughter, long
From mother's kiss and father's blessing far,<...

Alas, good friend, what profit can you see
In hating such a hateless thing as me?
There is no sport in hate where all the rage
Is on one side: in vain would you assuage
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile,
In which not even contempt lurks to beguile
Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.
Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate!
For to your passion I am far more coy
Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy
In winter noon. Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.

    Go, Winter!    Go thy ways!    We want again
    The twitter of the bluebird and the wren;
    Leaves ever greener growing, and the shine
            Of Summer's sun - not thine. -

    Thy sun, which mocks our need of warmth and love
    And all the heartening fervencies thereof,
    It scarce hath heat enow to warm our thin
            Pathetic yearnings in.

    So get thee from us!    We are cold, God wot,
    Even as thou art. - We remember not
    How blithe we hailed thy coming. - That was O
            Too long - too long ago!

    Get from us utterly!    Ho!    Summer then
    Shall spread her grasses where thy snows have been,
    And thy last icy footprint melt and mold
            In her first marigold.

The sun burns fiercely down the skies;
The sea is full of flashing eyes;
The waves glide shoreward serpentwise

And fawn with foamy tongues on stark
Gray rocks, each sharp-toothed as a shark,
And hiss in clefts and channels dark.

Blood-purple soon the waters grow,
As though drowned sea-kings fought below
Forgotten fights of long ago.

The gray owl Dusk its wings has spread;
The sun sinks in a blossom-bed
Of poppy-clouds; the day is dead.

As faith thus sanctified the warrior's crest
While from the Papal Unity there came,
What feebler means had failed to give, one aim
Diffused thro' all the regions of the West;
So does her Unity its power attest
By works of Art, that shed, on the outward frame
Of worship, glory and grace, which who shall blame
That ever looked to heaven for final rest?
Hail countless Temples! that so well befit
Your ministry; that, as ye rise and take
Form spirit and character from holy writ,
Give to devotion, wheresoe'er awake,
Pinions of high and higher sweep, and make
The unconverted soul with awe submit.

The stars cleave the sky.
    Yet for us they rest,
And their race-course high
    Is a shining nest!

The hours hurry on.
    But where is thy flight,
Soft pavilion
    Of motionless night?

Earth gives up her trees
    To the holy air;
They live in the breeze;
    They are saints at prayer!

Summer night, come from God,
    On your beauty, I see,
A still wave has flowed
    Of eternity!

From "Cynthia's Revels"

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear, when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.

Sad is the wane of beauty to the fair,
Sad is the flux of fortune to the proud,
Sad is the look dejected lovers wear,
And sad is worth beneath detraction's cloud.
Sad is our youth's inexorable end,
Sad is the bankruptcy of fancy's wealth,
Sad is the last departure of a friend,
And sadder than most things is loss of health.

And yet more sad than these to think upon
Is this - the saddest thought beneath the sun -
Life, flowing like a river, almost gone
Into eternity, and nothing done.
Let me be spared that bootless last regret:
Let me work now; I may do something yet.