Sir Nameless, once of Athelhall, declared:
"These wretched children romping in my park
Trample the herbage till the soil is bared,
And yap and yell from early morn till dark!
Go keep them harnessed to their set routines:
Thank God I've none to hasten my decay;
For green remembrance there are better means
Than offspring, who but wish their sires away."

Sir Nameless of that mansion said anon:
"To be perpetuate for my mightiness
Sculpture must image me when I am gone."
- He forthwith summoned carvers there express
To shape a figure stretching seven-odd feet
(For he was tall) in alabaster stone,
With shield, and crest, and casque, and word complete:
When done a statelier work was never known.

Three hundred years hied; Church-restorers came,
And, n...

Very old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the briar's boughs,
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are -
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.

Very old are the brooks;
And the rills that rise
Where snow sleeps cold beneath
The azure skies
Sing such a history
Of come and gone,
Their every drop is as wise
As Solomon.

Very old are we men;
Our dreams are tales
Told in dim Eden
By Eve's nightingales;
We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.

Her house looked cold from the foggy lea,
And the square of each window a dull black blur
Where showed no stir:
Yes, her gloom within at the lack of me
Seemed matching mine at the lack of her.

The black squares grew to be squares of light
As the eyeshade swathed the house and lawn,
And viols gave tone;
There was glee within. And I found that night
The gloom of severance mine alone.

KINGSTON-MAURWARD PARK.

I.

    Oh! I am come to the low countrie,
        Och-on, och-on, och-rie!
    Without a penny in my purse,
        To buy a meal to me.

II.

    It was na sae in the Highland hills,
        Och-on, och-on, och-rie!
    Nae woman in the country wide
        Sae happy was as me.

III.

    For then I had a score o' kye,
        Och-on, och-on, och-rie!
    Feeding on yon hills so high,
        And giving milk to me.

IV.

    And there I had three score o' yowes,
        Och-on, och-on, och-rie!
    Skipping on yon bonnie knowes,
        And casting woo' to me.

V.

    I was the happiest of a' the clan,
        Sair, sair, may I repine;
    For Donald was the brawest lad,
  ...

While thou didst keep thy candour undefil'd,
Dearly I lov'd thee as my first-born child,
But when I saw thee wantonly to roam
From house to house, and never stay at home,
I brake my bonds of love, and bade thee go,
Regardless whether well thou sped'st or no.
On with thy fortunes then, whate'er they be:
If good, I'll smile; if bad, I'll sigh for thee.

Gold I've none, for use or show,
Neither silver to bestow
At my death; but this much know;
That each lyric here shall be
Of my love a legacy,
Left to all posterity.
Gentle friends, then do but please
To accept such coins as these
As my last remembrances.

    Blue, blue is the sea to-day,
            Warmly the light
    Sleeps on St. Andrews Bay--
            Blue, fringed with white.

    That's no December sky!
            Surely 'tis June
    Holds now her state on high,
            Queen of the noon.

    Only the tree-tops bare
            Crowning the hill,
    Clear-cut in perfect air,
            Warn us that still

    Winter, the aged chief,
            Mighty in power,
    Exiles the tender leaf,
            Exiles the flower.

    Is there a heart to-day,
            A heart that grieves
    For flowers that fade away,
            For fallen leaves?

    Oh, not in leaves or flowers
            Endures the charm
    That clothes those naked tow...

Of bronze and blaze
The north, to-night!
So adequate its forms,
So preconcerted with itself,
So distant to alarms, --
An unconcern so sovereign
To universe, or me,
It paints my simple spirit
With tints of majesty,
Till I take vaster attitudes,
And strut upon my stem,
Disdaining men and oxygen,
For arrogance of them.

My splendors are menagerie;
But their competeless show
Will entertain the centuries
When I am, long ago,
An island in dishonored grass,
Whom none but daisies know.

See yonder leafless trees against the sky,
How they diffuse themselves into the air,
And, ever subdividing, separate
Limbs into branches, branches into twigs.
As if they loved the element, and hasted
To dissipate their being into it.



Parks and ponds are good by day;
I do not delight
In black acres of the night,
Nor my unseasoned step disturbs
The sleeps of trees or dreams of herbs.



In Walden wood the chickadee
Runs round the pine and maple tree
Intent on insect slaughter:
O tufted entomologist!
Devour as many as you list,
Then drink in Walden water.



The low December vault in June be lifted high,
And largest clouds be flakes of down in that enormous sky.

O winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire,
What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn
Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn
Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire
The streams than under ice. June could not hire
Her roses to forego the strength they learn
In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn
The bridges thou dost lay where men desire
In vain to build.
            O Heart, when Love's sun goes
To northward, and the sounds of singing cease,
Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace.
Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose.
Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows,
The winter is the winter's own release.

O for a dirge! But why complain?
Ask rather a triumphal strain
When Fermor's race is run;
A garland of immortal boughs
To twine around the Christian's brows,
Whose glorious work is done.

We pay a high and holy debt;
No tears of passionate regret
Shall stain this votive lay;
Ill-worthy, Beaumont! were the grief
That flings itself on wild relief
When Saints have passed away.

Sad doom, at Sorrow's shrine to kneel,
For ever covetous to feel,
And impotent to bear!
Such once was hers, to think and think
On severed love, and only sink
From anguish to despair!

But nature to its inmost part
Faith had refined; and to her heart
A peaceful cradle given:
Calm as the dew-drop's, free to rest
Within a breeze-fanned rose's breas...

Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple and peach tree fruited deep,

Fair as the garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,

On that pleasant morn of the early fall
When Lee marched over the mountain-wall,

Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,
Sh...

'The oppression of the tumult, wrath and scorn
The tribulation and the gleaming blades'
Such is the impetuous spirit that pervades
The song of Taliesin; Ours shall mourn
The 'unarmed' Host who by their prayers would turn
The sword from Bangor's walls, and guard the store
Of Aboriginal and Roman lore,
And Christian monuments, that now must burn
To senseless ashes. Mark! how all things swerve
From their known course, or vanish like a dream;
Another language spreads from coast to coast;
Only perchance some melancholy Stream
And some indignant Hills old names preserve,
When laws, and creeds, and people all are lost!

As I sat by my baby's bed
That's open to the sky,
There fluttered round and round my head
A radiant butterfly.

And as I wept - of hearts that ache
The saddest in the land -
It left a lily for my sake,
And lighted on my hand.

I watched it, oh, so quietly,
And though it rose and flew,
As if it fain would comfort me
It came and came anew.

Now, where my darling lies at rest,
I do not dare to sigh,
For look! there gleams upon my breast
A snow-white butterfly.

    O rough, rude, ready-witted Rankine,
    The wale o' cocks for fun an' drinkin'!
    There's monie godly folks are thinkin',
        Your dreams[1] an' tricks
    Will send you, Korah-like, a-sinkin'
        Straught to auld Nick's.

    Ye hae sae monie cracks an' cants,
    And in your wicked, dru'ken rants,
    Ye mak a devil o' the saunts,
        An' fill them fou;
    And then their failings, flaws, an' wants,
        Are a' seen through.

    Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it!
    That holy robe, O dinna tear it!
    Spare't for their sakes wha aften wear it,
        The lads in black!
    But your curst wit, when it comes near it,
        Rives't aff their back.

    Think, wicked sinner, wha ye're skaithing,
   ...

I.

We wrote and sang of a bush we never
Had known in youth in the Western land;
Of the dear old homes by the shining river,
The deep, clear creeks and the hills so grand.
The grass waved high on the flat and siding,
The wild flowers bloomed on the banks so fair,
And younger sons from the North came riding
To vine-clad homes in the gardens there.
We wrote and sang, and the Lord knows best,
Oh, those dear old songs of the fairy West!

We dreamed and sang of the “bustling mother”;
The brick-floored kitchen we saw so clear,
The pranks and jokes of the youngest brother,
The evening songs of our sisters dear.
The old man dozed in the chimney corner,
Or smoked and blinked at the cheerful blaze,
Or yarned with a crony, old Jack Horner,
Who’d known...

L' arbor gentil che forte amai molt' anni.

IMPRECATION AGAINST THE LAUREL.


    The graceful tree I loved so long and well,
Ere its fair boughs in scorn my flame declined,
Beneath its shade encouraged my poor mind
To bud and bloom, and 'mid its sorrow swell.
But now, my heart secure from such a spell,
Alas, from friendly it has grown unkind!
My thoughts entirely to one end confined,
Their painful sufferings how I still may tell.
What should he say, the sighing slave of love,
To whom my later rhymes gave hope of bliss,
Who for that laurel has lost all--but this?
May poet never pluck thee more, nor Jove
Exempt; but may the sun still hold in hate
On each green leaf till blight and blackness wait.

MACGREGOR.

From the lyrical eclogue "One Day and Another"


Now rests the season in forgetfulness,
Careless in beauty of maturity;
The ripened roses round brown temples, she
Fulfills completion in a dreamy guess.
Now Time grants night the more and day the less:
The gray decides; and brown
Dim golds and drabs in dulling green express
Themselves and redden as the year goes down.
Sadder the fields where, thrusting hoary high
Their tasseled heads, the Lear-like corn-stocks die,
And, Falstaff-like, buff-bellied pumpkins lie. -
Deepening with tenderness,
Sadder the blue of hills that lounge along
The lonesome west; sadder the song
Of the wild redbird in the leafage yellow. -
Deeper and dreamier, aye!
Than woods or waters, leans the languid sky
Above lone or...