Identity

        I thought he was dumb,
        I said he was dumb,
        Yet I've heard him cry.

        First faint scream,
        Out of life's unfathomable dawn,
        Far off, so far, like a madness, under the horizon's dawning rim,
        Far, far off, far scream.

        Tortoise in extremis.

        Why were we crucified into sex?

        Why were we not left rounded off, and finished in ourselves,
        As we began,
        As he certainly began, so perfectly alone?

        A far, was-it-audible scream,
        Or did it sound on the plasm direct?

        Worse than the cry of the new-born,
        A scream,
        A yell,
        A shout,
        A pæan,
        A death-agony,
        A b...

    Well for youth to seek the strong,
        Beautiful, and brave!
    We, the old, who walk along
        Gently to the grave,
    Only pay our court to thee,
    Child of all Eternity!

    We are old who once were young,
        And we grow more old;
    Songs we are that have been sung,
        Tales that have been told;
    Yellow leaves, wind-blown to thee,
    Childhood of Eternity!

    If we come too sudden near,
        Lo, Earth's infant cries,
    For our faces wan and drear
        Have such withered eyes!
    Thou, Heaven's child, turn'st not away
    From the wrinkled ones who pray!

    Smile upon us with thy mouth
        And thine eyes of grace;
    On our cold north breathe thy south.
        Thaw th...

The young see heaven - but to the old who wait
    The final call, the hills of youth arise
    More beautiful than shores of Paradise.
Beside a glowing and voracious grate
    A dozing couple dream of yesterday;
The islands of a vanished past appear,
Bringing forgotten names and faces near;
    While lost in mist, the present fades away.
The fragrant winds of tender memories blow
    Across the gardens of the "Used-to-be!"
    They smile into each other's eyes, and see
The bride and bridegroom of the long ago.
    And tremulous lips, pressed close to faded cheek
    Love's silent tale of deathless passion speak.

Not at the first sight, nor with a dribbed shot,
Loue gaue the wound, which, while I breathe, will bleede;
But knowne worth did in tract of time proceed,
Till by degrees, it had full conquest got.
I saw and lik'd; I lik'd but loued not;
I lou'd, but straight did not what Loue decreed:
At length, to Loues decrees I, forc'd, agreed,
Yet with repining at so partiall lot.
Now, euen that footstep of lost libertie
Is gone; and now, like slaue-borne Muscouite,
I call it praise to suffer tyrannie;
And nowe imploy the remnant of my wit
To make myselfe beleeue that all is well,
While, with a feeling skill, I paint my hell.

I think the moon is very kind
To take such trouble just for me.
He came along with me from home
To keep me company.

He went as fast as I could run;
I wonder how he crossed the sky?
I'm sure he hasn't legs and feet
Or any wings to fly.

Yet here he is above their roof;
Perhaps he thinks it isn't right
For me to go so far alone,
Tho' mother said I might.

Swarthy wastelands, wide and woodless, glittering miles and miles away,
Where the south wind seldom wanders and the winters will not stay;
Lurid wastelands, pent in silence, thick with hot and thirsty sighs,
Where the scanty thorn-leaves twinkle with their haggard, hopeless eyes;
Furnaced wastelands, hunched with hillocks, like to stony billows rolled,
Where the naked flats lie swirling, like a sea of darkened gold;
Burning wastelands, glancing upward with a weird and vacant stare,
Where the languid heavens quiver o’er red depths of stirless air!

“Oh, my brother, I am weary of this wildering waste of sand;
In the noontide we can never travel to the promised land!
Lo! the desert broadens round us, glaring wildly in my face,
With long leagues of sunflame on it, oh! the barren, bar...

Here where the cypress tall
Shadows the stucco wall,
Bronze and deep,
Where the chrysanthemums blow,
And the roses - blood and snow -
He lies asleep.

Florence dreameth afar;
Memories of foray and war,
Murmur still;
The Certosa crowns with a cold
Cloud of snow and gold
The olive hill.

What has he now for the streams
Born sweet and deep with dreams
From the cedar meres?
Only the Arno's flow,
Turbid, and weary, and slow
With wrath and tears.

What has he now for the song
Of the boatmen, joyous and long,
Where the rapids shine?
Only the sound of toil,
Where the peasants press the soil
For the oil and wine.

Spirit-fellow in sooth
With bold La Salle and Duluth,
And La Vérandrye, -
Nothing ...

God permits industrious angels
Afternoons to play.
I met one, -- forgot my school-mates,
All, for him, straightway.

God calls home the angels promptly
At the setting sun;
I missed mine. How dreary marbles,
After playing Crown!

The merriment that followed was subdued -
As though the story-teller's attitude
Were dual, in a sense, appealing quite
As much to sorrow as to mere delight,
According, haply, to the listener's bent
Either of sad or merry temperament. -
"And of your two appeals I much prefer
The pathos," said "The Noted Traveler," -
"For should I live to twice my present years,
I know I could not quite forget the tears
That child-eyes bleed, the little palms nailed wide,
And quivering soul and body crucified....
But, bless 'em! there are no such children here
To-night, thank God! - Come here to me, my dear!"
He said to little Alex, in a tone
So winning that the sound of it alone
Had drawn a child more lothful to his knee: -
"And, now-sir, I'll agree if you'll...

Every man worth the name
has a yellow snake in his soul,
seated as on a throne, saying
if he cries: ‘I want to!’: ‘No!’


Lock eyes with the fixed gaze
of Nixies or Satyresses, says
the Tooth: ‘Think of your duty!’


Make children, or plant trees,
polish verses, or marble frieze,
the Tooth says: ‘Tonight, where will you be?’


Whatever he likes to consider
there’s never a moment passing
a man can’t hear the warning
of that insufferable Viper.

Yea, she and I have broken God's command,
    And in His sight are branded with our shame.
    And yet I do not even know her name,
Nor ever in my life have touched her hand
Or brushed her garments.    But I chanced to stand
    Beside her in the throng!    A sweet, swift flame
    Shot from her flesh to mine -and hers the blame
Of willing looks that fed it; aye, that fanned
The glow within me to a hungry fire.
    There was an invitation in her eyes.
    Had she met mine with coldness or surprise,
I had not plunged on headlong in the mire
Of amorous thought.    The flame leaped high and higher;
    Her breath and mine pulsated into sighs,
    And soft glance melted into glance kiss-wise,
And in God's sight both yielded to desire.

The Text is that of the Jamieson-Brown MS.


The Story is one of the countless variations of the French 'Beauty and the Beast.' A modern Greek tale narrates that a nereid, enamoured of a youth, and by him scorned, turned him into a snake till he should find another love as fair as she.

The feature of this ballad is that the queen of the fairies should have power to undo the evil done by a witch.


ALLISON GROSS

    1.
    O Allison Gross, that lives in yon tow'r,
        The ugliest witch i' the north country,
    Has trysted me ae day up till her bow'r,
        An' monny fair speech she made to me.

    2.
    She stroaked my head, an' she kembed my hair,
        An' she set me down saftly on her knee;
    Says, 'Gin ye will be my lemman so t...

The long winter wanes. On the wings
of the spring come the geese and the mallards;
On the bare oak the red-robin sings,
and the crocus peeps up on the prairies,
And the bobolink pipes, but he brings
of the blue-eyed, brave White Chief no tidings.
With the waning of winter, alas,
waned the life of the aged Ta-té-psin;
Ere the wild pansies peeped from the grass,
to the Land of the Spirits he journeyed;
Like a babe in its slumber he passed,
or the snow from the hill-tops of April;
And the dark-eyed Winona, at last,
stood alone by the graves of her kindred.
When their myriad mouths opened the trees
to the sweet dew of heaven and the raindrops,
And the April showers fell on the leas,
on his mound fell the tears of Winona.
Round her drooping form gathered ...

Somewhere, somewhen I've seen,
But where or when I'll never know,
Parrots of shrilly green
With crests of shriller scarlet flying
Out of black cedars as the sun was dying
Against cold peaks of snow.

From what forgotten life
Of other worlds I cannot tell
Flashes that screeching strife;
Yet the shrill colour and shrill crying
Sing through my blood and set my heart replying
And jangling like a bell.

How cold the old porch seems.    A dreary chill
    Creeps upward from the river at twilight,
    And yet, I like to linger here at night,
And dream the summer tarries with us still.

The summer and the summer guests, or guest.
    (Men rarely dream in plurals.)    Over there
    Beyond the pillars, stands the rustic chair,
As bare and empty as a robin's nest.

No pretty head reclines its golden bands
    Against the back.    No playful winds disclose
    Distracting glimpses of embroidered hose:
No palm leaf waves in dainty, dangerous hands.

How cold it is!    That star up yonder gleams
    A white ice sickle from the heavenly eaves.
    That bleak wind from the river sighs and grieves,
Perchance o'er some poor fellow's broken dreams.

Co...

But a bold pheasantry, their country's pride
When once destroyed can never be supplied.
        GOLDSMITH.


Bill Blossom was a nice young man,
And drove the Bury coach;
But bad companions were his bane,
And egg'd him on to poach.

They taught him how to net the birds,
And how to noose the hare;
And with a wiry terrier,
He often set a snare.

Each "shiny night" the moon was bright,
To park, preserve, and wood
He went, and kept the game alive,
By killing all he could.

Land-owners, who had rabbits, swore
That he had this demerit -
Give him an inch of warren, he
Would take a yard of ferret.

At partridges he was not nice;
And many, large and small,
Without Hall's powder, without lead,
Were sent to Leade...

Fair Eve, as fair and still
As fairest thought, climbs the high sheltering hill;
As still and fair
As the white cloud asleep in the deep air.

As cool, as fair and cool,
As starlight swimming in a lonely pool;
Subtle and mild
As through her eyes the soul looks of a child.

A linnet sings and sings,
A shrill swift cleaves the air with blackest wings;
White twinkletails
Run frankly in their meadow as day fails.

On such a night, a night
That seems but the full sleep of tired light,
I look and wait
For what I know not, looking long and late.

Is it for a dream I look,
A vision from the Tree of Heaven shook,
As sweetness shaken
From the fresh limes on lonely ways forsaken?

A dream of one, maybe,
Who comes like sud...

Gooid bye, lass, aw dunnot blame,
Tho' mi loss is hard to bide!
For it wod ha' been a shame,
Had tha ivver been the bride
Of a workin chap like me;
One 'ats nowt but love to gie.

Hard hoof'd neives like thease o' mine.
Surely ne'er wor made to press
Hands so lily-white as thine;
Nor should arms like thease caress
One so slender, fair, an' pure,
'Twor unlikely, lass, aw'm sure.

But thease tears aw cannot stay, -
Drops o' sorrow fallin fast,
Hopes once held aw've put away
As a dream, an think its past;
But mi poor heart loves thi still,
An' wol life is mine it will.

When aw'm seated, lone and sad,
Wi mi scanty, hard won meal,
One thowt still shall mak me glad,
Thankful that alone aw feel
What it is to tew an' striv...