War

Tune - "My Peggy's Face."



I.

    My Peggy's face, my Peggy's form,
    The frost of hermit age might warm;
    My Peggy's worth, my Peggy's mind,
    Might charm the first of human kind.
    I love my Peggy's angel air,
    Her face so truly, heav'nly fair,
    Her native grace so void of art,
    But I adore my Peggy's heart.

II.

    The lily's hue, the rose's dye,
    The kindling lustre of an eye;
    Who but owns their magic sway?
    Who but knows they all decay!
    The tender thrill, the pitying tear,
    The gen'rous purpose, nobly dear,
    The gentle look, that rage disarms
    These are all immortal charms.

    Marie Fortelka, widow, mother of Josef,
    Now seventeen, an invalid at home
    In a house, in Halstead Street, his running side
    Aching with broken ribs, read in the Times
    Of Lowell's death the editor, dressed herself
    To call on William Rummler, legal mind
    For Lowell and the Times.

    It was a day
    When fog hung over the city, and she thought
    Of fogs in Germany whence she came, and thought
    Of hard conditions there when she was young.
    Then as her boy, this Josef, coughed, she looked
    And felt a pang at heart, a rise of wrath,
    And heard him moan for broken ribs and lungs
    That had been bruised or mashed. America,
    Oh yes, America, she said to self,
    How is it different from the land I left...

He who commends the vanquished, speaks the power
And glorifies the worthy conqueror.

Cumhal called out, bending his head,
Till Dathi came and stood,
With a blink in his eyes at the cave mouth,
Between the wind and the wood.

And Cumhal said, bending his knees,
‘I have come by the windy way
‘To gather the half of your blessedness
‘And learn to pray when you pray.

‘I can bring you salmon out of the streams
‘And heron out of the skies.’
But Dathi folded his hands and smiled
With the secrets of God in his eyes.

And Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke
All manner of blessed souls,
Women and children, young men with books,
And old men with croziers and stoles.

‘Praise God and God’s mother,’ Dathi said,
‘For God and God’s mother have sent
‘The blessedest souls that walk in the world
‘To fill your heart with content.’...

(AFTER TALIESSIN)

The heavy blue chain
Of the boundless main
Didst thou, just man, endure.


I have an arrow that will find its mark,
A mastiff that will bite without a hark.

This is a valentine for you.
    Mother made it. She's real smart,
I told her that I loved you true
    And you were my sweetheart.

And then she smiled, and then she winked,
    And then she said to father,
"Beginning young!" and then he thinked,
    And then he said, "Well, rather."

Then mother's eyes began to shine,
And then she made this valentine:
"If you love me as I love you,
No knife shall cut our love in two,"
And father laughed and said, "How new!"
And then he said, "It's time for bed."

So, when I'd said my prayers,
Mother came running up the stairs
And told me I might send the rhymes,
And then she kissed me lots of times.
Then I turned over to the wall
And cried about you, and - that's all.

("Je suis la Charité.")

[February, 1837.]


"Lo! I am Charity," she cries,
"Who waketh up before the day;
While yet asleep all nature lies,
God bids me rise and go my way."

How fair her glorious features shine,
Whereon the hand of God hath set
An angel's attributes divine,
With all a woman's sweetness met.

Above the old man's couch of woe
She bows her forehead, pure and even.
There's nothing fairer here below,
There's nothing grander up in heaven,

Than when caressingly she stands
(The cold hearts wakening 'gain their beat),
And holds within her holy hands
The little children's naked feet.

To every den of want and toil
She goes, and leaves the poorest fed;
Leaves wine and bread, and genial oil,<...

Oh, I am the siren, the siren of the sea,
The sea, the wondrous sea, that lies forevermore before;
I stand a fairy shape upon the shadow of a cliff
Where the water's drowsy ripple laps the phantom of a shore,
And, oh, so fair, so fair am I, I draw all hearts to me,
For I am the siren, the siren of the sea.

All the glory of my golden tresses gleams upon the air,
How it falls about my snowy shoulders, round and bare and white;
My lips are full of love as rounded grapes are full of wine,
And my eyes are large and languid, and full of dewy light;
Oh, I lure the idle landsmen many a league for love of me,
For I am the siren, the siren of the sea.

Sometimes they press so near that my breath is on their cheek,
And their eager hands can almost touch the glowing bowl I be...

(ALASKAN BALLAD)

The Northland reared his hoary head
And spied the Southland leagues away--
"Fairest of all fair brides," he said,
"Be thou my bride, I pray!"

Whereat the Southland laughed and cried:
"I'll bide beside my native sea,
And I shall never be thy bride
Till thou com'st wooing me!"

The Northland's heart was a heart of ice,
A diamond glacier, mountain high--
Oh, love is sweet at any price,
As well know you and I!

So gayly the Northland took his heart
And cast it in the wailing sea--
"Go, thou, with all thy cunning art,
And woo my bride for me!"

For many a night and for many a day,
And over the leagues that rolled between,
The true-heart messenger sped away
To woo the Southland queen.

But the...

Born of a thoroughbred English race,
Well proportioned and closely knit,
Neat, slim figure and handsome face,
Always ready and always fit,
Hardy and wiry of limb and thew,
That was the ne'er-do-well Jim Carew.

One of the sons of the good old land,
Many a year since his like was known;
Never a game but he took command,
Never a sport but he held his own;
Gained at his college a triple blue,
Good as they make them was Jim Carew.
Came to grief, was it card or horse?
Nobody asked and nobody cared;
Ship him away to the bush of course,
Ne'er-do-well fellows are easily spared;
Only of women a sorrowing few
Wept at parting from Jim Carew.

Gentleman Jim on the cattle-camp,
Sitting his horse with an easy grace;
But the reckless living has ...

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead;
And there reigns Love, and all Love’s loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things remov’d that hidden in thee lie!
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give,
That due of many now is thine alone:
Their images I lov’d, I view in thee,
And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.

I drew the letter out, while gleamed
The sloping sun from under a roof
Of cloud whose verge rose visibly.

The burning ball flung rays that seemed
Stretched like a warp without a woof
Across the levels of the lea

To where I stood, and where they beamed
As brightly on the page of proof
That she had shown her false to me

As if it had shown her true - had teemed
With passionate thought for my behoof
Expressed with their own ardency!

("Mon âme à ton coeur s'est donnée.")

[ANGELO, Act II., May, 1835.]


My soul unto thy heart is given,
In mystic fold do they entwine,
So bound in one that, were they riven,
Apart my soul would life resign.
Thou art my song and I the lyre;
Thou art the breeze and I the brier;
The altar I, and thou the fire;
Mine the deep love, the beauty thine!
As fleets away the rapid hour
While weeping - may
My sorrowing lay
Touch thee, sweet flower.

ERNEST OSWALD COE.

What would you do wi' a doughter--
    Pray wi' her, bensil(1) her, flout her?--
Say, what would you do wi' a daughter
    That's marra to Bonney(2) hissen?

I prayed wi' her first, of a Sunday,
    When chapil was lowsin' for t' neet;
An' I laid all her cockaloft marlocks(3)
    'Fore th' Almighty's mercy-seat.
When I looked for her tears o' repentance,
    I jaloused(4) that I saw her laugh;
An' she said that t' Powers o' Justice
    Would scatter my words like chaff.

Then I bensilled her hard in her cham'er,
    As I bensils owd Neddy i' t' cart.
If prayers willent teach thee, my dolly,
    Happen whip-stock will mak thy tears start.
But she stood there as chuff as a mawmet,(5)
    Not one chunt'rin(6) word did she say:
But she hoped th...

Far are those tranquil hills,
Dyed with fair evening's rose;
On urgent, secret errand bent,
A traveller goes.

Approach him strangers three,
Barefooted, cowled; their eyes
Scan the lone, hastening solitary
With dumb surmise.

One instant in close speech
With them he doth confer:
God-sped, he hasteneth on,
That anxious traveller ...

I was that man - in a dream:
And each world's night in vain
I patient wait on sleep to unveil
Those vivid hills again.

Would that they three could know
How yet burns on in me
Love - from one lost in Paradise -
For their grave courtesy.

Because your voice was at my side
I gave him pain,
Because within my hand I held
Your hand again.

There is no word nor any sign
Can make amend,
He is a stranger to me now
Who was my friend.

        Yes, we've been travelling, my dear,
            Three months, or such a matter,
        And it's a blessing to get clear
            Of all the clash and clatter!
        Ah! when I look the guide-book through,
            And see each queer place in there,
        'Tis hard to make it seem quite true
            That I myself have been there!

        Our voyage? Oh, of course 'twas gay -
            Delightful! splendid! glorious!
        We spurned the shore - we sped away -
            We rode the waves victorious.
        The first mate's mustache was so grand!
            The ocean sweet, though stormy
        (I was so sick I could not stand,
            But papa saw it for me).

        At Queenstown we saw land once more -
    ...

Long time beside the squatter's gate
A great grey Box-Tree, early, late,
Or shine or rain, in silence there
Had stood and watched the seasons fare:
Had seen the wind upon the plain
Caress the amber ears of grain;
The river burst its banks and come
Far past its belt of mighty gum:
Had seen the scarlet months of drought
Scourging the land with fiery knout;
And seasons ill and seasons good
Had alternated as they would.
The years were born, had grown and gone,
While suns had set and suns had shone;
Fierce flames had swept; chill waters drenched;
That sturdy yeoman never blenched.

The Tree had watched the station grow,
The buildings rising row on row;
And from that point of vantage green,
Peering athwart its leafy screen,
The wondering sol...