Identity

Among the mountains were we nursed, loved Stream
Thou near the eagle's nest, within brief sail,
I, of his bold wing floating on the gale,
Where thy deep voice could lull me! Faint the beam
Of human life when first allowed to gleam
On mortal notice. Glory of the vale,
Such thy meek outset, with a crown, though frail,
Kept in perpetual verdure by the steam
Of thy soft breath! Less vivid wreath entwined
Nemaean victor's brow; less bright was worn,
Meed of some Roman chief, in triumph borne
With captives chained; and shedding from his car
The sunset splendours of a finished war
Upon the proud enslavers of mankind!

"Wasn't it a funny dream! - perfectly bewild'rin'! -
    Last night, and night before, and night before that,
Seemed like I saw the march o' regiments o' children,
    Marching to the robin's fife and cricket's rat-ta-tat!
Lily-banners overhead, with the dew upon 'em,
    On flashed the little army, as with sword and flame;
Like the buzz o' bumble-wings, with the honey on 'em,
    Came an eerie, cheery chant, chiming as it came: -


Where go the children? Travelling! Travelling!
    Where go the children, travelling ahead?
Some go to kindergarten; some go to day-school;
    Some go to night-school; and some go to bed!


Smooth roads or rough roads, warm or winter weather,
    On go the children, tow-head and brown,
Brave b...

The following lines were written at the request of a little girl, who said she would recite them at a Sunday School entertainment. Prof. J. S. Blackie of Edinburgh, in a letter acknowledging the receipt of my book, said he considered this piece worthy of being committed to memory in the public schools. Sir Daniel Wilson of Toronto University also approves of them as containing good sentiments and should be impressed on the minds of the young.


        Dressing in fashion will be called vain,
        And they'll call you a dowdy if you are plain,
        But do what is right, let that be the test,
        Then proudly hold up your head with the best.
                        For people will talk.

        You will never be wrong if you do what is right,
        And this course pursue with a...

The ring is on my hand,
And the wreath is on my brow;
Satin and jewels grand
Are all at my command,
And I am happy now.

And my lord he loves me well;
But, when first he breathed his vow,
I felt my bosom swell
For the words rang as a knell,
And the voice seemed his who fell
In the battle down the dell,
And who is happy now.

But he spoke to re-assure me,
And he kissed my pallid brow,
While a reverie came o'er me,
And to the church-yard bore me,
And I sighed to him before me,
Thinking him dead D'Elormie,
"Oh, I am happy now!"

And thus the words were spoken,
And this the plighted vow,
And, though my faith be broken,
And, though my heart be broken,
Here is a ring, as token
That I am happy now!

Wou...

PETER RONSARD loquitur.


“Heigho!” yawned one day King Francis,
“Distance all value enhances!
“When a man’s busy, why, leisure
“Strikes him as wonderful pleasure,
“’Faith, and at leisure once is he?
“Straightway he wants to be busy.
“Here we’ve got peace; and aghast I’m
“Caught thinking war the true pastime!
“Is there a reason in metre?
“Give us your speech, master Peter!”
I who, if mortal dare say so,
Ne’er am at loss with my Naso,
“Sire,” I replied, “joys prove cloudlets:
“Men are the merest Ixions”,
Here the King whistled aloud, “Let’s
“ . . Heigho . . go look at our lions!”
Such are the sorrowful chances
If you talk fine to King Francis.

And so, to the courtyard proceeding,
Our company, Francis was leading,
...

Denis, whose motionable, alert, most vaulting wit
Caps occasion with an intellectual fit.
Yet Arthur is a Bowman: his three-heeled timber'll hit
The bald and bóld blínking gold when áll's dóne
Right rooting in the bare butt's wincing navel in the sight of the sun.

Shall Earth no more inspire thee,
Thou lonely dreamer now?
Since passion may not fire thee
Shall nature cease to bow?

Thy mind is ever moving
In regions dark to thee;
Recall its useless roving
Come back and dwell with me

I know my mountain breezes
Enchant annd soothe thee still
I know my sunshine pleases
Despite thy wayward will

When day with evening blending
Sinks from the summer sky,
I've seen thy spirit bending
In fond idolotry

I've watched thee every hour
I know my mighty sway
I know my magic power
To drive thy griefs away

Few hearts to mortal given
On earth so wildly pine
Yet none would ask a Heaven
More like this Earth than thine

Then let my winds caress thee
Thy comrade let...

In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.

At my feet the city slumbered.    From its chimneys, here and there,
Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;
And the world, beneath me sleepin...

When the drums begin to beat
Down the street,
When the poles are fetched and guyed,
When the tight-rope's stretched and tied,
When the dance-girls make salaam,
When the snake-bag wakes alarm,
When the pipes set up their drone,
When the sharp-edged knives are thrown
When the red-hot coals are shown,
To be swallowed by-and-by,
Arre, Brethren, here come I!

Stripped to loin-cloth in the sun,
Search me well and watch me close!
Tell me how my tricks are done,
Tell me how the mango grows!

Give a man who is not made
To his trade
Swords to fling and catch again,
Coins to ring and snatch again,
Men to harm and cure again,
Snakes to charm and lure again,
He'll be hurt by his own blade,
By his serpents disobeyed,
By his clums...

When I was a boy, and saw bright rows of icicles
In many lengths along a wall
I was dissappointed to find
That I could not play music upon them:
I ran my hand lightly across them
And they fell, tinkling.
I tell you this, young man, so that your expectations of life
Will not be too great.

"There was darkness."

A Morn of guilt, an hour of doom -
    Shocks and tremblings dread;
All the city sunk in gloom -
    Thick darkness overhead.
An awful Sufferer straight and stark;
    Mocking voices fell;
Tremblings - tremblings in the dark,
    In heaven, and earth, and hell.

Groping, stumbling up the way,
    They pass, whom Christ forgave;
They know not what they do - they say,
    "Himself He cannot save.
On His head behold the crown
    That alien hands did weave;
Let Him come down, let Him come down,
    And we will believe!"

Fearsome dreams, a rending veil,
    Cloven rocks down hurl'd;
God's love itself doth seem to fail
    The Saviour of the world.
Dying thieves do curse and wail,
    Eithe...

    "He shall sleep unscathed of thieves
    Who loves Allah and believes."
    Thus heard one who shared the tent,
    In the far-off Orient,
    Of the Bedouin ben Ahrzz -
    Nobler never loved the stars
    Through the palm-leaves nigh the dim
    Dawn his courser neighed to him!

    He said: "Let the sands be swarmed
        With such thieves as I, and thou
    Shalt at morning rise, unharmed,
        Light as eyelash to the brow
    Of thy camel, amber-eyed,
    Ever munching either side,
    Striding still, with nestled knees,
    Through the midnight's oases.

    "Who can rob thee an thou hast
    More than this that thou hast cast
    At my feet - this dust of gold?
    Simply this and that, all told!
    Hast thou not ...

Listen, dearest! you must love me more,
More than you did before!
Hark, what a beating here of wings!
Never at rest,
Dear, in your breast!
Is it your heart with its flutterings,
Making a music, love, for us both?
Or merely a moth, a velvet-winged moth,
Which out of the garden's fragrance swings,
Weaving a spell,
That holds the rose and the moon in thrall?
I love you more than I can tell;
And no recall
How long ago
Our quarrel and all!
You say, you know,
A perfect pearl grows out of well,
A little friction; tiny grain
Of sand or shell
So love grew out of that moment's pain,
The heart's disdain
Since then I have thought of no one but you,
And how your heart would beat on mine,
Like light on dew.
And I thought how foolish t...

The words you said grow faint;
The lamp you lit burns dim;
Yet, still be near your faithless friend
To urge and counsel him.

Still with returning feet
To where life's shadows brood,
With steadfast eyes made clear in death
Haunt his vague solitude.

So he, beguiled with earth,
Yet with its vain things vexed,
Keep even to his own heart unknown
Your memory unperplexed.

The wisest soul, by anguish torn,
    Will soon unlearn the lore it knew;
And when the shrining casket's worn,
    The gem within will tarnish too.

But love's an essence of the soul,
    Which sinks hot with this chain of clay;
Which throbs beyond the chill control
    Of withering pain or pale decay.

And surely, when the touch of Death
    Dissolves the spirit's earthly ties,
Love still attends the immortal breath,
    And makes it purer for the skies!

Oh Rosa, when, to seek its sphere,
    My soul shall leave this orb of men,
That love which formed its treasure here,
    Shall be its best of treasures then!

And as, in fabled dreams of old,
    Some air-born genius, child of time,
Presided o'er each star that rolled,

"Delicta juventutis et ignorantius ejus, quoesumus ne memineris, Domine."



I left, to earth, a little maiden fair,
With locks of gold, and eyes that shamed the light;
I prayed that God might have her in His care
And sight.

Earth's love was false; her voice, a siren's song;
(Sweet mother-earth was but a lying name)
The path she showed was but the path of wrong
And shame.

"Cast her not out!" I cry. God's kind words come,
"Her future is with Me, as was her past;
It shall be My good will to bring her home
At last."

Say, ye far-traveled clouds, far-seeing hills
Among the happiest-looking homes of men
Scattered all Britain over, through deep glen,
On airy upland, and by forest rills,
And o'er wide plains cheered by the lark that trills
His sky-born warblings, does aught meet your ken
More fit to animate the Poet's pen,
Aught that more surely by its aspect fills
Pure minds with sinless envy, than the Abode
Of the good Priest: who, faithful through all hours
To his high charge, and truly serving God,
Has yet a heart and hand for trees and flowers,
Enjoys the walks his predecessors trod,
Nor covets lineal rights in lands and towers.

Her Vivien eyes, - beware! beware!
Though they be stars, a deadly snare
They set beneath her night of hair.
Regard them not! lest, drawing near
As sages once in old Chaldee
Thou shouldst become a worshiper,
And they thy evil destiny.

Her Vivien eyes, - away! away!
Though they be springs, remorseless they
Gleam underneath her brow's bright day.
Turn, turn aside, whate'er the cost!
Lest in their deeps thou lures behold,
Through which thy captive soul were lost,
As was young Hylas once of old.

Her Vivien eyes, - take heed! take heed!
Though they be bibles, none may read
Therein of God or Holy Creed.
Look, look away! lest thou be cursed,
As Merlin was, romances tell,
And in their sorcerous spells immersed,
Hoping for Heaven thou cha...