Identity

Tune - "My Nannie, O."


I.

    Behind yon hills, where Lugar flows,
        'Mang moors an' mosses many, O,
    The wintry sun the day has closed,
        And I'll awa to Nannie, O.

II.

    The westlin wind blaws loud an' shrill;
        The night's baith mirk and rainy, O;
    But I'll get my plaid, an' out I'll steal,
        An' owre the hills to Nannie, O.

III.

    My Nannie's charming, sweet, an' young;
        Nae artfu' wiles to win ye, O:
    May ill befa' the flattering tongue
        That wad beguile my Nannie, O.

IV.

    Her face is fair, her heart is true,
        As spotless as she's bonnie, O:
    The op'ning gowan, wat wi' dew,
        Nae purer is than Nannie, O.

The sultry day it wears away,
And o'er the distant leas
The mist again, in purple stain,
Falls moist on flower and trees:
His home to find, the weary hind
Glad leaves his carts and ploughs;
While maidens fair, with bosoms bare,
Go coolly to their cows.

The red round sun his work has done,
And dropp'd into his bed;
And sweetly shin'd the oaks behind
His curtains fringed with red:
And step by step the night has crept,
And day, as loth, retires;
But clouds, more dark, night's entrance mark.
Till day's last spark expires.

Pride of the vales, the nightingales
Now charm the oaken grove;
And loud and long, with amorous tongue,
They try to please their love:
And where the rose reviving blows
Upon the swelter'd bower,
I'll take...

The western breeze is springing up, the ships are in the bay,
And spring has brought a happy change as winter melts away.
No more in stall or fire the herd or plowman finds delight;
No longer with the biting frosts the open fields are white.

Our Lady of Cythera now prepares to lead the dance,
While from above the kindly moon gives an approving glance;
The Nymphs and comely Graces join with Venus and the choir,
And Vulcan's glowing fancy lightly turns to thoughts of fire.

Now it is time with myrtle green to crown the shining pate,
And with the early blossoms of the spring to decorate;
To sacrifice to Faunus, on whose favor we rely,
A sprightly lamb, mayhap a kid, as he may specify.

Impartially the feet of Death at huts and castles strike;
The influenza carri...

The fields were bleak and sodden.
    Not a wing
Or note enlivened the depressing wood;
A soiled and sullen, stubborn snowdrift stood
Beside the roadway.    Winds came muttering
Of storms to be, and brought the chilly sting
    Of icebergs in their breath.    Stalled cattle mooed
    Forth plaintive pleadings for the earth's green food.
No gleam, no hint of hope in anything.

The sky was blank and ashen, like the face
    Of some poor wretch who drains life's cup too fast
Yet, swaying to and fro, as if to fling
About chilled Nature its lithe arms of grace,
    Smiling with promise in the wintry blast,
The optimistic Willow spoke of spring.

Said Paul Leroy to Barrow,
'Though the breach is steep and narrow,
If we only gain the summit
Then it's odds we hold the fort.
I have ten and you have twenty,
And the thirty should be plenty,
With Henderson and Henty
And McDermott in support.'

Said Barrow to Leroy,
'It's a solid job, my boy,
For they've flanked it, and they've banked it,
And they've bored it with a mine.
But it's only fifty paces
Ere we look them in the faces;
And the men are in their places,
With their toes upon the line.'

Said Paul Leroy to Barrow,
'See that first ray, like an arrow,
How it tinges all the fringes
Of the sullen drifting skies.
They told me to begin it
At five-thirty to the minute,
And at thirty-one I'm in it,
Or my sub will get h...

O the frozen valley and frozen hill make a coffin wide and deep,
And the dead river lies, all its laughter stilled within it, fast asleep.

The trees that have played with the merry thing, and freighted its breast with leaves,
Give never a murmur or sigh of woe - they are dead - no dead thing grieves.

No carol of love from a song-bird's throat; the world lies naked and still,
For all things tender, and all things sweet, have been touched by the gruesome chill.

Not a flower - a blue forget-me-not, a wild rose, or jasmine soft -
To lay its bloom on the dead river's lips, that have kissed them all so oft.

But look! a ladder is spanning the space 'twixt earth and the sky beyond,
A ladder of gold for the Maid of Grace - the strong, the subtle, the fond!

Spring, with...

My parents bow, and lead them forth,
    For all the crowd to see -
Ah well! the people might not care
    To cheer a dwarf like me.

They little know how I could love,
    How I could plan and toil,
To swell those drudges' scanty gains,
    Their mites of rye and oil.

They little know what dreams have been
    My playmates, night and day;
Of equal kindness, helpful care,
    A mother's perfect sway.

Now earth to earth in convent walls,
    To earth in churchyard sod:
I was not good enough for man,
    And so am given to God.

Bertrich in the Eifel, 1851.

Wild clouds roll up, slag-dark and slaty gray,
And in the oaks the sere wind sobs and sighs,
Weird as a word a man before he dies
Mutters beneath his breath yet fears to say:
The rain drives down; and by each forest way
Each dead leaf drips, and murmurings arise
As of fantastic footsteps, one who flies,
Whispering, the dim eidolon of the day.

Now is the wood a place where phantoms house:
Around each tree wan ghosts of flowers crowd,
And spectres of sweet weeds that once were fair,
Rustling; and through the bleakness of bare boughs
A voice is heard, now low, now stormy loud,
As if the ghosts of all the leaves were there.

When once the sun sinks in the west,
And dew-drops pearl the evening's breast;
Almost as pale as moonbeams are,
Or its companionable star,
The evening primrose opes anew
Its delicate blossoms to the dew;
And, shunning-hermit of the light,
Wastes its fair bloom upon the night;
Who, blindfold to its fond caresses,
Knows not the beauty he possesses.
Thus it blooms on till night is bye
And day looks out with open eye,
Abashed at the gaze it cannot shun,
It faints and withers, and is done.

1.

Why, Pigot, complain
Of this damsel's disdain,
Why thus in despair do you fret?
For months you may try,
Yet, believe me, a sigh
Will never obtain a coquette.


2.

Would you teach her to love?
For a time seem to rove;
At first she may frown in a pet;
But leave her awhile,
She shortly will smile,
And then you may kiss your coquette.


3.

For such are the airs
Of these fanciful fairs,
They think all our homage a debt:
Yet a partial neglect
Soon takes an effect,
And humbles the proudest coquette.


4.

Dissemble your pain,
And lengthen your chain,
And seem her hauteur to regret;
If again you shall sigh,
She no more will deny,
That yours is the rosy coquet...

Madam, Since Anna visited the muse's seat,
(Around her tomb let weeping angels wait)
Hail, thou, the brightest of thy sex, and best,
Most gracious neighbour and most welcome guest:
Not Harley's self, to Cam and Isis dear,
In virtues and in arts great Oxford's heir,
Not he such present honour shall receive
As to his consort we aspire to give.

Writings of men our thought to-day neglects,
To pay due homage to the softer sex:
Plato and Tully we forbear to read,
And their great followers whom this house has bred,
To study lessons from thy morals given,
And shining characters impress'd by Heaven.
Science in books no longer we pursue,
Minerva's self in Harriet's face we view;
For when with Beauty we can Virtue join,
We paint the semblance of a form divine....

The Crankadox leaned o'er the edge of the moon
    And wistfully gazed on the sea
Where the Gryxabodill madly whistled a tune
    To the air of "Ti-fol-de-ding-dee."
The quavering shriek of the Fly-up-the-creek
    Was fitfully wafted afar
To the Queen of the Wunks as she powdered her cheek
    With the pulverized rays of a star.

The Gool closed his ear on the voice of the Grig,
    And his heart it grew heavy as lead
As he marked the Baldekin adjusting his wing
    On the opposite side of his head,
And the air it grew chill as the Gryxabodill
    Raised his dank, dripping fins to the skies,
And plead with the Plunk for the use of her bill
    To pick the tears out of his eyes.

The ghost of the Zhack flitted by in a trance,
    And the Squidju...

The Colonel went out sailing,
He spoke with Turk and Jew,
With Christian and with Infidel,
For all tongues he knew.
"O what's a wifeless man?' said he,
And he came sailing home.
He rose the latch and went upstairS
And found an empty room.
i(The Colonel went out sailing.)
"I kept her much in the country
And she was much alone,
And though she may be there,' he said,
"She may be in the town.
She may be all alone there,
For who can say?' he said.
"I think that I shall find her
In a young man's bed.'
i(The Colonel went out sailing.)

III
The Colonel met a pedlar,
Agreed their clothes to swop,
And bought the grandest jewelry
In a Galway shop,
Instead of thread and needle
put jewelry in the pack,
Bound a thong about h...

What shall we be like when
We cast this earthly body and attain
To immortality?
What shall we be like then?

Ah, who shall say
What vast expansions shall be ours that day?
What transformations of this house of clay,
To fit the heavenly mansions and the light of day?
Ah, who shall say?

But this we know,--
We drop a seed into the ground,
A tiny, shapeless thing, shrivelled and dry,
And, in the fulness of its time, is seen
A form of peerless beauty, robed and crowned
Beyond the pride of any earthly queen,
Instinct with loveliness, and sweet and rare,
The perfect emblem of its Maker's care.

This from a shrivelled seed?--
--Then may man hope indeed!

For man is but the seed of what he shall be.
When, in the fulness of his p...

After W. W.

An adventure of the Author's, and one designed to show that grievances may be met with in the cottages of the humblest, and may take the most unexpected forms.


When in my white-washed walls confined
Till eve her freedom brings,
I often turn a musing mind
To think awhile of things,

And thus about the noontide glow
To-day my thoughts recalled
Old Adam, whom I once did know,
A dear old thing, though bald.

A village Gravedigger was he
With Newgate fringe of grey,
The only man that one could see
At work on Saturday!

For on those evenings (which provide
A due release to toil)
He shovelled wearily, and plied
His task upon the soil.

Therein a sorrow Adam had,
And when he knew me well
He t...

As I was going to Bethlehem-town,
Upon the earth I cast me down
All underneath a little tree
That whispered in this wise to me:
"Oh, I shall stand on Calvary
And bear what burthen saveth thee!"

As up I fared to Bethlehem-town,
I met a shepherd coming down,
And thus he quoth: "A wondrous sight
Hath spread before mine eyes this night,--
An angel host most fair to see,
That sung full sweetly of a tree
That shall uplift on Calvary
What burthen saveth you and me!"

And as I gat to Bethlehem-town,
Lo! wise men came that bore a crown.
"Is there," cried I, "in Bethlehem
A King shall wear this diadem?"
"Good sooth," they quoth, "and it is He
That shall be lifted on the tree
And freely shed on Calvary
What blood redeemeth us and thee!...

This is the song for a soldier
    To sing as he rides from home
To the fields afar where the battles are
    Or over the ocean's foam:
'Whatever the dangers waiting
    In the lands I have not seen,
If I do not fall - if I come back at all,
    Then I will come back clean.

'I may lie in the mud of the trenches,
    I may reek with blood and mire,
But I will control, by the God in my soul,
    The might of my man's desire.
I will fight my foe in the open,
    But my sword shall be sharp and keen
For the foe within who would lure me to sin,
    And I will come back clean.

'I may not leave for my children
    Brave medals that I have worn,
But the blood in my veins shall leave no stains
    On bride or on babes unborn;
And the sca...

Skilled mariner, and counted sane and wise,
    That was a curious thing which chanced to me,
    So good a sailor on so fair a sea.
With favouring winds and blue unshadowed skies,
Led by the faithful beacon of Love's eyes,
    Past reef and shoal, my life-boat bounded free
    And fearless of all changes that might be
Under calm waves, where many a sunk rock lies.

A golden dawn; yet suddenly my barque
    Strained at the sails, as in a cyclone's blast;
    And battled with an unseen current's force,
For we had entered when the night was dark
    That old tempestuous Gulf Stream of the Past.
    But for love's eyes, I had not kept the course.