Identity

Well! I'm determin'd; that's enough: -
Gee, Bayard! move your poor old bones,
I'll take to-morrow, smooth or rough,
To go and court the Widow Jones.

Our master talks of stable-room,
And younger horses on his grounds;
'Tis easy to foresee thy doom,
Bayard, thou'lt go to feed the hounds.

The first Determination.

But could I win the widow's hand,
I'd make a truce 'twixt death and thee;
For thou upon the best of land
Should'st feed, and live, and die with me.

And must the pole-axe lay thee low?
And will they pick thy poor old bones?
No - hang me if it shall be so, -
If I can win the Widow Jones.

Twirl went his stick; his curly pate
A bran-new hat uplifted bore;
And Abner, as he leapt the gate,
Had never look'd so g...

    I am a keeper of the law
    In some sma' points, altho' not a';
    Some people tell me gin I fa'
        Ae way or ither.
    The breaking of ae point, though sma',
        Breaks a' thegither

    I hae been in for't once or twice,
    And winna say o'er far for thrice,
    Yet never met with that surprise
        That broke my rest,
    But now a rumour's like to rise,
        A whaup's i' the nest.

I.

The tufted gold of the sassafras,
And the gold of the spicewood-bush,
Bewilder the ways of the forest pass,
And brighten the underbrush:
The white-starred drifts of the wild-plum tree,
And the haw with its pearly plumes,
And the redbud, misted rosily,
Dazzle the woodland glooms.

II.

And I hear the song of the cat-bird wake
I' the boughs o' the gnarled wild-crab,
Or there where the snows of the dogwood shake
That the silvery sunbeams stab:
And it seems to me that a magic lies
In the crystal sweet of its notes,
That a myriad blossoms open their eyes
As its strain above them floats.

III.

I see the bluebell's blue unclose,
And the trillium's stainless white;
The bird-foot violet's purple and rose,
And ...

Written at the request of the corporation of the city of New York.




Gushing from this living fountain,
Music pours a falling strain,
As the goddess of the mountain
Comes with all her sparkling train.
From her grotto-springs advancing,
Glittering in her feathery spray,
Woodland fays beside her dancing,
She pursues her winding way.

Gently o'er the rippling water,
In her coral-shallop bright,
Glides the rock-king's dove-eyed daughter,
Decked in robes of virgin white.
Nymphs and naiads, sweetly smiling,
Urge her bark with pearly hand,
Merrily the sylph beguiling
From the nooks of fairy-land.

Swimming on the snow-curled billow,
See the river-spirits fair
Lay their cheeks, as on a pillow,
With the foam-beads in ...

I am alone - oh be thou near to me,
Great God! from whom the meanest are not far.
Not in presumption of the daring spirit,
Striving to find the secrets of itself,
Make I my weeping prayer; in the deep want
Of utter loneliness, my God! I seek thee;
If the worm may creep up to thy fellowship,
Or dust, instinct with yearning, rise towards thee.
I have no fellow, Father! of my kind;
None that be kindred, none companion to me,
And the vast love, and harmony, and brotherhood,
Of the dumb creatures thou hast made below me,
Vexes my soul with its own bitter lot.
Around me grow the trees, each by the other;
Innumerable leaves, each like the other,
Whisper and breathe, and live and move together.
Around me spring the flowers; each rosy cup
Hath sisters, leaning the...

Broad daylight, with a sense of weariness!
Mine eyes were closed, but I was not asleep,
My hand was in my father's, and I felt
His presence near me. Thus we often past
In silence, hour by hour. What was the need
Of interchanging words when every thought
That in our hearts arose, was known to each,
And every pulse kept time? Suddenly there shone
A strange light, and the scene as sudden changed.
I was awake:--It was an open plain
Illimitable,--stretching, stretching--oh, so far!
And o'er it that strange light,--a glorious light
Like that the stars shed over fields of snow
In a clear, cloudless, frosty winter night,
Only intenser in its brilliance calm.
And in the midst of that vast plain, I saw,
For I was wide awake,--it was no dream,
A tree with spreading ...

The London lights are far abeam
Behind a bank of cloud,
Along the shore the gaslights gleam,
The gale is piping loud;
And down the Channel, groping blind,
We drive her through the haze
Towards the land we left behind,
The good old land of `never mind',
And old Australian ways.

The narrow ways of English folk
Are not for such as we;
They bear the long-accustomed yoke
Of staid conservancy:
But all our roads are new and strange,
And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.

The city folk go to and fro
Behind a prison's bars,
They never feel the breezes blow
And never see the stars;
They never hear in blossomed trees
The music low and swee...

Our fathers toiled for bitter bread
While idlers thrived beside them;
But food to eat and clothes to wear
Their native land denied them.
They left their native land in spite
Of royalties’ regalia,
And so they came, or if they stole
Were sent out to Australia.

They struggled hard to make a home,
Hard grubbing ’twas and clearing.
They weren’t troubled much with toffs
When they were pioneering;
And now that we have made the land
A garden full of promise,
Old greed must crook his dirty hand
And come to take it from us.

But Freedom’s on the Wallaby,
She’ll knock the tyrants silly,
She’s going to light another fire
And boil another billy.
We’ll make the tyrants feel the sting
Of those that they would throttle;
They needn’t s...

Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill’d:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-kill’d.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigur’d thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-will’d, for thou art much too fair
To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.

Recollections of the Alhambra
By the Author of the Sketch-Book


During a summer’s residence in the old Moorish palace of the Alhambra, of which I have already given numerous anecdotes to the public, I used to pass much of my time in the beautiful hall of the Abencerrages, beside the fountain celebrated in the tragic story of that devoted race. Here it was, that thirty-six cavaliers of that heroic line were treacherously sacrificed, to appease the jealousy or allay the fears of a tyrant. The fountain which now throws up its sparkling jet, and sheds a dewy freshness around, ran red with the noblest blood of Granada, and a deep stain on the marble pavement is still pointed out, by the cicerones of the pile, as a sanguinary record of the massacre. I have regarded it with the same determined faith with which ...

I.

In Bodenstown Churchyard there is a green grave,
And wildly along it the winter winds rave;
Small shelter, I ween, are the ruined walls there,
When the storm sweeps down on the plains of Kildare.


II.

Once I lay on that sod--it lies over Wolfe Tone--
And thought how he perished in prison alone,
His friends unavenged, and his country unfreed--
"Oh, bitter," I said, "is the patriot's meed;


III.

"For in him the heart of a woman combined
With a heroic life and a governing mind--
A martyr for Ireland--his grave has no stone--
His name seldom named, and his virtues unknown."


IV.

I was woke from my dream by the voices and tread
Of a band, who came into the home of the dead;
They carried no corpse...

Maidens tell me I am old;
Let me in my glass behold
Whether smooth or not I be,
Or if hair remains to me.
Well, or be't or be't not so,
This for certainty I know,
Ill it fits old men to play,
When that Death bids come away.

What does time whisper, youth gay and light,
While thinning thy locks, silken and bright,
While paling thy soft cheek's roseate dye,
Dimming the light of thy flashing eye,
Stealing thy bloom and freshness away -
Is he not hinting at death - decay?

Man, in the wane of thy stately prime,
Hear'st thou the silent warnings of Time?
Look at thy brow ploughed by anxious care,
The silver hue of thy once dark hair; -
What boot thine honors, thy treasures bright,
When Time tells of coming gloom and night?

Sad age, dost thou note thy strength nigh, spent,
How slow thy footstep - thy form how bent?
Yet on looking back how short doth seem
The checkered coarse of thy life's brief dream.
Time, daily weakening each link and tie,
Doth whisper how soon thou art...

[1]


Youth's endearing charms are fled;
Hoary locks deform my head;
Bloomy graces, dalliance gay,
All the flowers of life decay.[2]
Withering age begins to trace
Sad memorials o'er my face;
Time has shed its sweetest bloom
All the future must be gloom.
This it is that sets me sighing;
Dreary is the thought of dying![3]
Lone and dismal is the road,
Down to Pluto's dark abode;
And, when once the journey's o'er,
Ah! we can return no more!

    "Unriddle this riddle, my own Jenny love,
    Unriddle this riddle for me,
    And if ye unriddle the riddle aright,
    A kiss your prize shall be,
    And if ye riddle the riddle all wrong,
    Ye're treble the debt to me:

    I'll give thee an apple without any core;
    I'll give thee a cherry where stones never be;
    I'll give thee a palace, without any door,
    And thou shalt unlock it without any key;
    I'll give thee a fortune that kings cannot give,
    Nor any one take from thee."

    "How can there be apples without any core?
    How can there be cherries where stones never be?
    How can there be houses without any door?
    Or doors I may open without any key?
    How can'st thou give fortunes that kings cannot give,
   ...

All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretense
Our wanderings to guide.

Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?

Imperious Prima flashes forth
Her edict `to begin it':
In gentler tones Secunda hopes
`There will be nonsense in it!'
While Tertia interrupts the tale
Not more than once a minute.

Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast,
And half believe ...

Though black the night, I know upon the sky,
A little paler now, if clouds were none,
The stars would be. Husht now the thickets lie,
And now the birds are moving one by one,,
A note, and now from bush to bush it goes,
A prelude, now victorious light along
The west will come till every bramble glows
With wash of sunlit dew shaken in song.
Shaken in song;    O heart, be ready now,
Cold in your night, be ready now to sing.
Dawn as it wakes the sleeping bird on bough
Shall summon you to instant reckoning,,
She is your dawn, O heart,, sing, till the night
Of death shall come, the gospel of her light.

Pink, small, and punctual,
Aromatic, low,
Covert in April,
Candid in May,

Dear to the moss,
Known by the knoll,
Next to the robin
In every human soul.

Bold little beauty,
Bedecked with thee,
Nature forswears
Antiquity.