Old age, aw can feel's creepin on,
Aw've noa taste for what once made me glad;
Mi love ov wild marlocks is gooan,
An aw know awm noa longer a lad.
When aw luk back at th' mile stooans aw've pass'd,
As aw've thowtlessly stroll'd o'er life's track,
Awm foorced to acknowledge at last,
'At its mooastly been all a mistak.

Aw know aw can ne'er start agean,
An what's done aw can nivver undo,
All aw've gained has been simply to leearn
Ha mi hooaps, one bi one's fallen throo.
When a lad, wi' moor follies nor brains,
Aw thowt what awd do as a man;
An aw caanted mi profits an gains,
As a lad full ov hooap only can.

An aw thowt when mi beard 'gan to grow,
Aw could leead all this world in a string,
Yet it tuk but a few years to show
'At aw couldn...

English Translation below Original

Hymnus Matutinus


        Nox et tenebrae et nubila,
    confusa mundi et turbida,
    lux intrat, albescit polus,
    Christus venit, discedite.

        Caligo terrae scinditur
    percussa solis spiculo,
    rebusque iam color redit
    vultu nitentis sideris.

        Sic nostra mox obscuritas
    fraudisque pectus conscium
    ruptis retectum nubibus
    regnante pallescit Deo.

        Tunc non licebit claudere
    quod quisque fuscum cogitat,
    sed mane clarescent novo
    secreta mentis prodita.

        Fur ante lucem squalido
    inpune peccat tempore,
    sed lux dolis contraria
    latere furtum non sinit.

        Versuta fraus et callida

So friend of mine 'tis thy birthday morn,
    And friends with fair gifts around thee come,
Outside the circle I stand forlorn,
    My hands are empty my lips are dumb.

O Thou who seest in secret still,
    Who reads the heart when no word is said,
The wishes that rise in prayer fulfil
    In royal blessings to crown his head.

Entering the portals of manhood now,
    The boy we loved from our knowledge slips,
With fresh consecration seal his brow,
    With thy altar fire retouch his lips.

He girds himself for the strife anew,
    And love foresees what the dangers are;
But thou, O Captain, art tried and true,
    'Tis at thy charge he goes forth to war!

My empty hands to thy throne I lift,
    While parting sorrow my spirit swells,...

The sanctity that is about the dead
To make us love them more than late, when here,
Is not it well to find the living dear
With sanctity like this, ere they have fled?

The tender thoughts we nurture for a loss
Of mother, friend, or child, oh! it were wise
To spend this glory on the earnest eyes,
The longing heart, that feel life's present cross.

Give also mercy to the living here
Whose keen-strung souls will quiver at your touch;
The utmost reverence is not too much
For eyes that weep, although the lips may sneer.

Not on Penobscot's wooded bank the spires
Of the sought City rose, nor yet beside
The winding Charles, nor where the daily tide
Of Naumkeag's haven rises and retires,
The vision tarried; but somewhere we knew
The beautiful gates must open to our quest,
Somewhere that marvellous City of the West
Would lift its towers and palace domes in view,
And, to! at last its mystery is made known
Its only dwellers maidens fair and young,
Its Princess such as England's Laureate sung;
And safe from capture, save by love alone,
It lends its beauty to the lake's green shore,
And Norumbega is a myth no more

    1856.


Paris, from throats of iron, silver, brass,
Joy-thundering cannon, blent with chiming bells,
And martial strains, the full-voiced paean swells.
The air is starred with flags, the chanted mass
Throngs all the churches, yet the broad streets swarm
With glad-eyed groups who chatter, laugh, and pass,
In holiday confusion, class with class,
And over all the spring, the sun-floods warm!
In the Imperial palace that March morn,
The beautiful young mother lay and smiled;
For by her side just breathed the Prince, her child,
Heir to an empire, to the purple born,
Crowned with the Titan's name that stirs the heart
Like a blown clarion - one more Bonaparte.

    Have ever you heard of the Land of Beyond,
    That dreams at the gates of the day?
    Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies,
    And ever so far away;
    Alluring it calls: O ye the yoke galls,
    And ye of the trail overfond,
    With saddle and pack, by paddle and track,
    Let's go to the Land of Beyond!

    Have ever you stood where the silences brood,
    And vast the horizons begin,
    At the dawn of the day to behold far away
    The goal you would strive for and win?
    Yet ah! in the night when you gain to the height,
    With the vast pool of heaven star-spawned,
    Afar and agleam, like a valley of dream,
    Still mocks you a Land of Beyond.

    Thank God! there is always a Land of Beyond
    For us who are true t...

    A Legend of the Talmud.


        I.


When angels visit earth, the messengers
Of God's decree, they come as lightning, wind:
Before the throne, they all are living fire.
There stand four rows of angels - to the right
The hosts of Michael, Gabriel's to the left,
Before, the troop of Ariel, and behind,
The ranks of Raphael; all, with one accord,
Chanting the glory of the Everlasting.
Upon the high and holy throne there rests,
Invisible, the Majesty of God.
About his brows the crown of mystery
Whereon the sacred letters are engraved
Of the unutterable Name. He grasps
A sceptre of keen fire; the universe
Is compassed in His glance; at His right hand
Life stands, and at His left hand standeth Death.




       ...

If yo've a fancy for a spree,
Goa up to Lundun, same as me,
Yo'll find ther's lots o' things to see,
To pleeas yo weel.
If seem isn't quite enuff,
Yo needn't tew an waste yor puff,
To find some awkard sooarts o' stuff
At yo can feel.

Yo'll nobbut need to set yor shoe
On some poleeceman's tender toa, -
A varry simple thing to do, -
An wi a crack
Enuff to mak a deead man jump,
Daan comes his staff, an leeaves a lump,
An then he'll fling yo wi a bump,
Flat o' yor back.

If signs o' riches suit yo best,
Yer een can easily be blest;
Or if yo seek for fowk distrest,
They're easy fun,
Wi faces ommost worn to nowt,
An clooas at arn't worth a thowt,
Yet show ha long wi want they've fowt,
Till fairly done.

Like a ...

“Daughter,” said the ancient father, pausing by the evening sea,
“Turn thy face towards the sunset turn thy face and kneel with me!
Prayer and praise and holy fasting, lips of love and life of light,
These and these have made thee perfect shining saint with seraph’s sight!
Look towards that flaming crescent look beyond that glowing space
Tell me, sister of the angels, what is beaming in thy face?”
And the daughter, who had fasted, who had spent her days in prayer,
Till the glory of the Saviour touched her head and rested there,
Turned her eyes towards the sea-line saw beyond the fiery crest,
Floating over waves of jasper, far Hy-Brasil in the west.

All the calmness and the colour all the splendour and repose,
Flowing where the sunset flowered, like a silver-hearted rose!
Th...

(See Note 19)

    As thou sittest there
    Skerry-bound and fair,
Mountains high around and ocean's deep before thee,
    On thee casts her spell
    Saga, that shall tell
Once again the wonders of our land.

    Honor is thy due,
    "Bergen never new,"
Ancient and unaging as thy Holberg's humor;
    Once kings sought thine aid, -
    Mighty now in trade, -
First to fly the flag of liberty.

    Oft in proud array,
    As a sunshine-day
Breaks forth from thy rain and fog wind-driven,
    Thou didst come with men
    Or great deeds again,
When the clouds were darkest o'er our land.

    Thy soul was the ground,
    Wit-enriched and sound,
Whence there sprang stout thoughts to make our country's harvest,

Care keeps the conquest; 'tis no less renown
To keep a city than to win a town.

I, who was always counted, they say,
Rather a bad stick any way,
Splintered all over with dodges and tricks,
Known as "the worst of the Deacon's six;"
I, the truant, saucy and bold,
The one black sheep in my father's fold,
"Once on a time," as the stories say,
Went over the hill on a winter's day--
Over the hill to the poor-house.

Tom could save what twenty could earn;
But givin' was somethin' he ne'er would learn;
Isaac could half o' the Scriptur's speak--
Committed a hundred verses a week;
Never forgot, an' never slipped;
But "Honor thy father and mother" he skipped;
So over the hill to the poor-house.

As for Susan, her heart was kind
An' good--what there was of it, mind;
Nothin' too big, an' nothin' too nice,
Nothin' she wouldn't ...

Her moods are like the fountain's, changing ever,
    That spouts aloft a sudden, watery dome,
    Only to fall again in shattering foam,
Just where the wedded jets themselves dissever,
And palpitating downward, downward quiver,
    Unfolded like a swift ethereal flower,
    That sheds white petals in a blinding shower,
And straightway soars anew with blithe endeavor.

The sun may kindle it with healthful fire;
    Upon it falls the cloud-gray's leaden load;
At night the stars shall haunt the whirling spire:
    Yet these have but a transient garb bestowed.
So her glad life, whate'er the hours impart,
Plays still 'twixt heaven's cope and her own clear heart.

I will ask primrose and violet to spend for you
Their smell and hue,
And the bold, trembling anemone awhile to spare
Her flowers starry fair;
Or the flushed wild apple and yet sweeter thorn
Their sweetness to keep
Longer than any fire-bosomed flower born
Between midnight and midnight deep.

And I will take celandine, nettle and parsley, white
In its own green light,
Or milkwort and sorrel, thyme, harebell and meadowsweet
Lifting at your feet,
And ivy blossom beloved of soft bees; I will take
The loveliest--
The seeding grasses that bend with the winds, and shake
Though the winds are at rest.

"For me?" you will ask. "Yes! surely they wave for you
Their smell and hue,
And you away all that is rare were so much less
By your missed happin...

I

Slowly the hour-hand of the clock moves round;
    So slowly that no human eye hath power
    To see it move!    Slowly in shine or shower
    The painted ship above it, homeward bound,
Sails, but seems motionless, as if aground;
    Yet both arrive at last; and in his tower
    The slumberous watchman wakes and strikes the hour,
    A mellow, measured, melancholy sound.
Midnight! the outpost of advancing day!
    The frontier town and citadel of night!
    The watershed of Time, from which the streams
Of Yesterday and To-morrow take their way,
    One to the land of promise and of light,
    One to the land of darkness and of dreams!

II

O River of Yesterday, with current swift
    Through chasms descending, and soon lost to sight,

Wod yo leead a happy life?
Aw can show yo ha, -
Get a true an lovin wife, -
(Yo may have one nah.)
If yo have, remember this,
Be a true man to her,
An whativver gooas amiss,
Keep noa secrets throo her.

Some chaps think a wife's a toy,
Just for ther caressin;
But sichlike can ne'er enjoy,
This world's richest blessin.
Some ther are who think 'em slaves,
Fit for nowt but drudgin,
An if owt ther fancy craves,
Give it to 'em grudgin.

Dooant forget yor patient wife,
Like yorsen is human,
For yo owe yor precious life,
To another woman.
Mak her equal wi' yorsen,
(Ten to one shoo's better,)
Tell her all yor plans, an then
If shoo'll help yo, let her.

Oft yo'll find her ready wit,
An her keen perception,

As on a waveless sea, a vessel strikes
Upon a treacherous rock;
Waking the sailors from their happy dreams
By the swift, terrible shock.

Dreaming of shaded village streets, and home,
Forgetting the cruel sea
Till the shock came - so woke I, yet I know
'Twas Love, I loved, not he.

'Tis not the star the wave so wildly clasps,
Only its form reflected in the stream;
'Tis not a broken heart I mourn,
Only a broken dream.

I should have died when he was brought so low,
Had it been him I loved,
Died clinging to him, as to the blasted oak
The ivy clings unmoved.

'Twas Love that looked on me with strange, sweet eyes
Burning with marvellous flame;
Love was the idol that I worshipped, though
I gave to it his name.

I gave to...