All in the merry month of May,
When green buds they were swelling,
Young Jemmy Grove on his death-bed lay
For love o' Barbara Allen.

He sent his man unto her then,
To the town where she was dwelling:
"O haste and come to my master dear,
If your name be Barbara Allen."

Slowly, slowly rase she up,
And she cam' where he was lying;
And when she drew the curtain by,
Says, "Young man, I think you're dying."

"O it's I am sick, and very, very sick,
And it's a' for Barbara Allen."
"O the better for me ye'se never be,
Tho' your heart's blude were a-spilling!

"O dinna ye min', young man," she says,
"When the red wine ye were filling,
That ye made the healths gae round and round
And ye slighted Barbara Allen?"

He turn'd hi...

Now was the sun so station'd, as when first
His early radiance quivers on the heights,
Where stream'd his Maker's blood, while Libra hangs
Above Hesperian Ebro, and new fires
Meridian flash on Ganges' yellow tide.

So day was sinking, when the' angel of God
Appear'd before us. Joy was in his mien.
Forth of the flame he stood upon the brink,
And with a voice, whose lively clearness far
Surpass'd our human, "Blessed are the pure
In heart," he Sang: then near him as we came,
"Go ye not further, holy spirits!" he cried,
"Ere the fire pierce you: enter in; and list
Attentive to the song ye hear from thence."

I, when I heard his saying, was as one
Laid in the grave. My hands together clasp'd,
And upward stretching, on the fire I look'd,
And busy fanc...

I.
Night and morning were at meeting
Over Waterloo;
Cocks had sung their earliest greeting;
Faint and low they crew,
For no paly beam yet shone
On the heights of Mount Saint John;
Tempest-clouds prolonged the sway
Of timeless darkness over day;
Whirlwind, thunder-clap, and shower
Marked it a predestined hour.
Broad and frequent through the night
Flashed the sheets of levin-light:
Muskets, glancing lightnings back,
Showed the dreary bivouac
Where the soldier lay,
Chill and stiff, and drenched with rain,
Wishing dawn of morn again,
Though death should come with day.

II.
'Tis at such a tide and hour
Wizard, witch, and fiend have power,
And ghastly forms through mist and shower
Gleam on the gifted ken;
And then the aff...

I.

THE NEW RESOLVE.

Last night, as I sat in my study,
    And thought o'er my lonely life,
I was seized with a passionate longing
    To escape from the weary strife;

To flee far away from my fellows,
    And far from the city's roar,
And seek on the boundless prairie
    A balm for my burning sore--

The sore of the weary spirit,
    The burn of the aching heart
Of him who has known true friendship--
    Has known it--but only to part.

And I said in that hour of anguish:
    "I will fly from the haunts of men,
And seek, in the bosom of Nature,
    Relief from my ceaseless pain."

As lonely I sat, and thus pondered,
    A voice seemed to speak in my ear;
And the sound of that voice was like music,
    ...

He who wears blacks, and mourns not for the dead,
Does but deride the party buried.

    Mother, with unbowed head
        Hear thou across the sea
    The farewell of the dead,
        The dead who died for thee.
    Greet them again with tender words and grave,
    For, saving thee, themselves they could not save.

    To keep the house unharmed
        Their fathers built so fair,
    Deeming endurance armed
        Better than brute despair,
    They found the secret of the word that saith,
    "Service is sweet, for all true life is death."

    So greet thou well thy dead
        Across the homeless sea,
    And be thou comforted
        Because they died for thee.
    Far off they served, but now their deed is done
    For evermore their life and thine are one.

I. Winter in Northumberland


Outside the garden
The wet skies harden;
The gates are barred on
The summer side:
"Shut out the flower-time,
Sunbeam and shower-time;
Make way for our time,"
Wild winds have cried.
Green once and cheery,
The woods, worn weary,
Sigh as the dreary
Weak sun goes home:
A great wind grapples
The wave, and dapples
The dead green floor of the sea with foam.

Through fell and moorland,
And salt-sea foreland,
Our noisy norland
Resounds and rings;
Waste waves thereunder
Are blown in sunder,
And winds make thunder
With cloudwide wings;
Sea-drift makes dimmer
The beacon's glimmer;
Nor sail nor swimmer
Can try the tides;
And snowdrifts thicken
Where, when leaves qu...

The angry wind
That cursed at me
Was nothing but an evil sprite
Vexed with any man's delight.

And strange it seemed
That a dark wind
Should run down from a mountain steep
And shout as though the world were asleep.

But when he ceased
And silence was--
Who could but fear what evil sprite
Crept through the tunnels of the night?

(Written after the British Service at Trinity Church, New York)


I.

Before those golden altar-lights we stood,
    Each one of us remembering his own dead.
A more than earthly beauty seemed to brood
    On that hushed throng, and bless each bending head.

Beautiful on that gold, the deep-sea blue
    Of those young seamen, ranked on either side,
Blent with the khaki, while the silence grew
    Deep, as for wings--Oh, deep as England's pride.

Beautiful on that gold, two banners rose--
    Two flags that told how Freedom's realm was made,
One fair with stars of hope, and one that shows
    The glorious cross of England's long crusade;

Two flags, now joined, till that high will be done
Which sent them forth to make the whole world one...

0 Lord, my God, how long
Shall my poor heart pant for a boundless joy?
How long, O mighty Spirit, shall I hear
The murmur of Truth's crystal waters slide
From the deep caverns of their endless being,
But my lips taste not, and the grosser air
Choke each pure inspiration of thy will?

I am a denseness 'twixt me and the light;
1 cannot round myself; my purest thought,
Ere it is thought, hath caught the taint of earth,
And mocked me with hard thoughts beyond my will.

I would be a wind
Whose smallest atom is a viewless wing,
All busy with the pulsing life that throbs
To do thy bidding; yea, or the meanest thing
That has relation to a changeless truth,
Could I but be instinct with thee--each thought
The lightning of a pure intelligence,
And eve...

But be contented: when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee:
The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
My spirit is thine, the better part of me:
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead;
The coward conquest of a wretch’s knife,
Too base of thee to be remembered,.
The worth of that is that which it contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.

"Now this is the price of a stirrup-cup,"
The kneeling doctor said.
And syne he bade them take him up,
For he saw that the man was dead.

They took him up, and they laid him down
( And, oh, he did not stir ),
And they had him into the nearest town
To wait the Coroner.

They drew the dead-cloth over the face,
They closed the doors upon,
And the cars that were parked in the market-place
Made talk of it anon.

Then up and spake a Daimler wide,
That carries the slatted tank:
"'Tis we must purge the country-side
And no man will us thank.

"For while they pray at Holy Kirk
The souls should turn from sin,
We cock our bonnets to the work,
And gather the drunken in.

"And if we spare them for the nonce,
Or their comrade...

Good things, that come of course, far less do please
Than those which come by sweet contingencies.

My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who might find him posted there,
And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh
Would break, what crutch ’gin write my epitaph
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,

If at his counsel I should turn aside
Into that ominous tract which, all agree,
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly
I did turn as he pointed: neither pride
Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,
So much as gladness...

When the hours of Day are numbered,
    And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul, that slumbered,
    To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
    And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight
    Dance upon the parlor wall;

Then the forms of the departed
    Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true-hearted,
    Come to visit me once more;

He, the young and strong, who cherished
    Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell and perished,
    Weary with the march of life!

They, the holy ones and weakly,
    Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
    Spake with us on earth no more!

And with them the Being Beauteous,
...

When a night in November
Blew forth its bleared airs
An infant descended
His birth-chamber stairs
For the very first time,
At the still, midnight chime;
All unapprehended
His mission, his aim. -
Thus, first, one November,
An infant descended
The stairs.

On a night in November
Of weariful cares,
A frail aged figure
Ascended those stairs
For the very last time:
All gone his life's prime,
All vanished his vigour,
And fine, forceful frame:
Thus, last, one November
Ascended that figure
Upstairs.

On those nights in November -
Apart eighty years -
The babe and the bent one
Who traversed those stairs
From the early first time
To the last feeble climb -
That fresh and that spent one -
Were eve...

I.

No more to feel the pressure warm
    Of dimpled arms around your neck--
No more to clasp the little form
    That Nature did with beauty deck.


II.

No more to hear the music sweet
    Of merry laugh and prattling talk--
No more to see the busy feet
    Come toddling down the shaded walk.


III.

No more the glint of flaxen hair
    That nestled 'round the lilied brow--
No more the rose's bloom will wear
    The cheek so cold and pallid now.


IV.

No more the light from loving eyes,
    Whose hue was like the violet blown
Where Summer's softest, bluest skies,
    Had lent it coloring from their own.


V.

No more to fondly bend above
    The little one when sl...

Valour and Innocence
Have latterly gone hence
To certain death by certain shame attended.
Envy, ah! even to tears!
The fortune of their years
Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended.

Scarce had they lifted up
Life's full and fiery cup,
Than they had set it down untouched before them.
Before their day arose
They beckoned it to close,
Close in confusion and destruction o'er them.

They did not stay to ask
What prize should crown their task,
Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for;
But passed into eclipse,
Her kiss upon their lips,
Even Belphoebe's, whom they gave their lives for!