Inspirational

Fair Ellen Irwin, when she sate
Upon the braes of Kirtle,
Was lovely as a Grecian maid
Adorned with wreaths of myrtle;
Young Adam Bruce beside her lay,
And there did they beguile the day
With love and gentle speeches,
Beneath the budding beeches.

From many knights and many squires
The Bruce had been selected;
And Gordon, fairest of them all,
By Ellen was rejected.
Sad tidings to that noble Youth!
For it may be proclaimed with truth,
If Bruce hath loved sincerely,
That Gordon loves as dearly.

But what are Gordon's form and face,
His shattered hopes and crosses,
To them, 'mid Kirtle's pleasant braes,
Reclined on flowers and mosses?
Alas that ever he was born!
The Gordon, couched behind a thorn,
Sees them and their caress...

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...

This ditty is a string of lies.
But-how the deuce did Gubbins rise?

Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.
Stands at the top of the tree;
And I muse in my bed on the reasons that led
To the hoisting of Potiphar G.

Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.,
Is seven years junior to Me;
Each bridge that he makes either buckles or breaks,
And his work is as rough as he.

Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.,
Is coarse as a chimpanzee;
And I can't understand why you gave him your hand,
Lovely Mehitabel Lee.

Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.,
Is dear to the Powers that Be;
For They bow and They smile in an affable style,
Which is seldom accorded to Me.

Potiphar Gubbins, C.E.,
Is certain as certain can be
Of a highly paid post which is claimed by a host
Of seniors, includ...

It was somewhere in September, and the sun was going down,
When I came, in search of `copy', to a Darling-River town;
`Come-and-have-a-drink' we'll call it, 'tis a fitting name, I think,
And 'twas raining, for a wonder, up at Come-and-have-a-drink.

'Neath the public-house verandah I was resting on a bunk
When a stranger rose before me, and he said that he was drunk;
He apologised for speaking; there was no offence, he swore;
But he somehow seemed to fancy that he'd seen my face before.

`No erfence,' he said. I told him that he needn't mention it,
For I might have met him somewhere; I had travelled round a bit,
And I knew a lot of fellows in the bush and in the streets,
But a fellow can't remember all the fellows that he meets.

Very old and thin and dirty were th...

Texts.--The version here given is compounded from two different sources, almost of necessity. Stanzas 1-19 were given by Scott, compounded from W. Tytler's Brown MS. and the recitation of an old woman. But at stanza 20 Scott's version becomes eccentric, and he prints such verses as:--

    'A famous harper passing by
    The sweet pale face he chanced to spy ...

    The strings he framed of her yellow hair,
    Whose notes made sad the listening air.'

Stanzas 20-25, therefore, have been supplied from the Jamieson-Brown MS., which after this point does not descend from the high level of ballad-poetry.

The Story.--This is a very old and a very popular story. An early broadside exists, dated 1656, and the same version is printed in Wit Restor'd, 1658. Of Scandinavian ballads on the ...

How many between east and west
Disgrace their parent earth,
Whose deeds constrain us to detest
The day that gave them birth!
Not so when Stella’s natal morn
Revolving months restore,
We can rejoice that she was born,
And wish her born once more!

The touches of her hands are like the fall
    Of velvet snowflakes; like the touch of down
The peach just brushes 'gainst the garden wall;
The flossy fondlings of the thistle-wisp
    Caught in the crinkle of a leaf of brown
The blighting frost hath turned from green to crisp.

Soft as the falling of the dusk at night,
The touches of her hands, and the delight -
    The touches of her hands!
The touches of her hands are like the dew
That falls so softly down no one e'er knew
The touch thereof save lovers like to one
Astray in lights where ranged Endymion.

O rarely soft, the touches of her hands,
As drowsy zephyrs in enchanted lands;
    Or pulse of dying fay; or fairy sighs,
Or - in between the midnight and the dawn,
When long unrest and tears...

How slight a thing may set one's fancy drifting
Upon the dead sea of the Past! - A view -
Sometimes an odor - or a rooster lifting
A far-off "Ooh! ooh-ooh!"

And suddenly we find ourselves astray
In some wood's-pasture of the Long Ago -
Or idly dream again upon a day
Of rest we used to know.

I bit an apple but a moment since -
A wilted apple that the worm had spurned. -
Yet hidden in the taste were happy hints
Of good old days returned. -

And so my heart, like some enraptured lute,
Tinkles a tune so tender and complete,
God's blessing must be resting on the fruit -
So bitter, yet so sweet!

TO THE TUNE OF 'TO ALL YOU LADIES NOW AT LAND.'

1 To one fair lady out of Court,
And two fair ladies in,
Who think the Turk[72] and Pope[73] a sport,
And wit and love no sin;
Come these soft lines, with nothing stiff in,
To Bellenden, Lepell, and Griffin.[74]
With a fa, la, la.

2 What passes in the dark third row,
And what behind the scene,
Couches and crippled chairs I know,
And garrets hung with green;
I know the swing of sinful hack,
Where many damsels cry alack.
With a fa, la, la.

3 Then why to Courts should I repair,
Where's such ado with Townshend?
To hear each mortal stamp and swear,
And every speech with 'zounds!' end;
To hear 'em rail at honest Sunderland,
And rashly blame the real...

She lay asleep, and her face shone white
As under a snowy veil,
And the waxen hands clasped on her breast
Were full of snowdrops pale;
But a holy calm touched the baby lips,
The brow, and the sleeping eyes,
The look of an angel pitying us
From the peace of Paradise.

And now though she lies 'neath the coffin-lid,
We cannot think her dead;
But we think of her as of some delicate bird
To a milder country fled.
'Twas a long, dark flight for our gentle dove,
Our bird so tender and fair;
But we know she has reached the summer land
And folded her white wings there.

    In youth, Death was
    a puny boy possessing but
    wormy hands & fleshless fingers
    as in Witch Hazel
    or Scrooge's Future Ghost
    - that insipid Evil One
    Hansel so easily outwitted
    in a gingerbread house.

    Time brought increased notoriety.
    Saucy times with a soupçon of respect
    for the artful dodger.
    Givens change, an armful of
    orange lilies, limp & loathsome,
    on a tombstone door
    before trumpets of rain.

    Graven images. Lifeless stone.
    Death became stone.
    Stone empty. The maggot emptiness
    burrowing into chiselled easel and
    the stone-cutter's savage magic.
    Just a bitty stone
    to herald a passing.

    Night-jars.
    Old straw-...

Pierrot stands in the garden
Beneath a waning moon,
And on his lute he fashions
A fragile silver tune.

Pierrot plays in the garden,
He thinks he plays for me,
But I am quite forgotten
Under the cherry tree.

Pierrot plays in the garden,
And all the roses know
That Pierrot loves his music,
But I love Pierrot.

TO D. M. M.


Greeks once sang a lovely song
    To their maiden Cora;
But my lay floats soft along
    To my Dainty Dora.

Frenchmen sing of Anne Belle,
    Romans sang of Flora;
But I sing my song to tell
    Of my Dainty Dora.

Scotchmen sing their songs to move
    Mary or Debora;
But I sing my song of love -
    Love for Dainty Dora.

Poets now a song may give
    Psyche or Lenora;
But I'll sing long as I live
    Just for Dainty Dora!

When faltering fingers bid me cease to write,
And, laying down the pen, I seek the Night,
May those, to whom the Daylight still is sweet,
With loving lips my name ofttimes repeat.
And should Belshazzar's spirit hither stray,
And linger o'er the lines I write to-day,
May he, who wept for Babylonia's fall,
Look kindly at this "writing on the wall"!

Ove ch' i' posi gli occhi lassi o giri.

HER IMAGE IS EVER IN HIS HEART.


    Where'er I rest or turn my weary eyes,
To ease the longings which allure them still,
Love pictures my bright lady at his will,
That ever my desire may verdant rise.
Deep pity she with graceful grief applies--
Warm feelings ever gentle bosoms fill--
While captived equally my fond ears thrill
With her sweet accents and seraphic sighs.
Love and fair Truth were both allied to tell
The charms I saw were in the world alone,
That 'neath the stars their like was never known.
Nor ever words so dear and tender fell
On listening ear: nor tears so pure and bright
From such fine eyes e'er sparkled in the light.

MACGREGOR.

You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go--
I know your hoary question, the riddle that all men know.
You have weighed the stars in a balance, and grasped the skies in a span:
Take, if you must have answer, the word of a common man.

Deep in my life lies buried one love unhealed, unshriven,
One hunger still shall haunt me--yea, in the streets of heaven;
This is the burden, babbler, this is the curse shall cling,
This is the thing I bring you; this is the pleasant thing.

'Gainst you and all your sages, no joy of mine shall strive,
This one dead self shall shatter the men you call alive.
My grief I send to smite you, no pleasure, no belief,
Lord of the battered grievance, what do you know of grief?

I only know the praises to heaven that one ma...

Oh, I am going home again,
Back to the old house in the lane,
And mother! who still sits and sews,
With cheeks, each one, a winter rose,
A-watching for her boy, you know,
Who left so many years ago,
To face the world, its stress and strain
Oh, I am going home again.

Yes, I am going home once more,
And mother 'll meet me at the door
With smiles that rainbow tears of joy,
And arms that reach out for her boy,
And draw him to her happy breast,
On which awhile his head he 'll rest,
And care no more, if rich or poor,
At home with her, at home once more.

Yes, I am going home to her,
Whose welcome evermore is sure:
I have been thinking, night and day,
How tired I am of being away!
How homesick for her gentle face,
And welcome of th...

The forest holds high carnival to-day,
And every hill-side glows with gold and fire;
Ivy and sumac dress in colors gay,
And oak and maple mask in bright attire.

The hoarded wealth of sober autumn days
In lavish mood for motley garb is spent,
And nature for the while at folly plays,
Knowing the morrow brings a snowy Lent.