The earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over
The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide
Slowly into another day; slowly the rover
Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide.

I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting
Me who am issued amazed from the darkness, stripped
And quailing here in the sunshine, delivered from haunting
The night unsounded whereon our days are shipped.

Feeling myself undawning, the day's light playing upon me,
I who am substance of shadow, I all compact
Of the stuff of the night, finding myself all wrongly
Among the crowds of things in the sunshine jostled and racked.

I with the night on my lips, I sigh with the silence of death;
And what do I care though the very stones should cry me unreal, th...

What's got by justice is established sure:
No kingdoms got by rapine long endure.

The colours of the setting sun
Withdrew across the Western land,
He raised the sliprails, one by one,
And shot them home with trembling hand;
Her brown hands clung, her face grew pale,
Ah! quivering chin and eyes that brim!,
One quick, fierce kiss across the rail,
And, `Good-bye, Mary!' `Good-bye, Jim!'
Oh, he rides hard to race the pain
Who rides from love, who rides from home;
But he rides slowly home again,
Whose heart has learnt to love and roam.

A hand upon the horse's mane,
And one foot in the stirrup set,
And, stooping back to kiss again,
With `Good-bye, Mary! don't you fret!
When I come back', he laughed for her,
`We do not know how soon 'twill be;
I'll whistle as I round the spur,
You let the sliprails down for me.'

She...

All night through Daisy's sleep, it seems,
Have ceaseless "rat-tats" thundered;
All night through Daisy's rosy dreams
Have devious Postmen blundered,
Delivering letters round her bed,--
Mysterious missives, sealed with red,
And franked of course with due Queen's-head,--
While Daisy lay and wondered.

But now, when chirping birds begin,
And Day puts off the Quaker,--
When Cook renews her morning din,
And rates the cheerful baker,--
She dreams her dream no dream at all,
For, just as pigeons come at call,
Winged letters flutter down, and fall
Around her head, and wake her.

Yes, there they are! With quirk and twist,
And fraudful arts directed;
(Save Grandpapa's dear stiff old "fist,"
Through all disguise detected;)
But which is his,-...

A faithless shepherd courted me,
He stole away my liberty.
When my poor heart was strange to men,
He came and smiled and stole it then.

When my apron would hang low,
Me he sought through frost and snow.
When it puckered up with shame,
And I sought him, he never came.


When summer brought no fears to fright,
He came to guard me every night.
When winter nights did darkly prove,
None came to guard me or to love.

I wish, I wish, but all in vain,
I wish I was a maid again.
A maid again I cannot be,
O when will green grass cover me?

Dear March, come in!
How glad I am!
I looked for you before.
Put down your hat --
You must have walked --
How out of breath you are!
Dear March, how are you?
And the rest?
Did you leave Nature well?
Oh, March, come right upstairs with me,
I have so much to tell!

I got your letter, and the birds';
The maples never knew
That you were coming, -- I declare,
How red their faces grew!
But, March, forgive me --
And all those hills
You left for me to hue;
There was no purple suitable,
You took it all with you.

Who knocks? That April!
Lock the door!
I will not be pursued!
He stayed away a year, to call
When I am occupied.
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come,
That blame is just as dear a...

        As the ambitious sculptor, tireless, lifts
    Chisel and hammer to the block at hand,
    Before my half-formed character I stand
        And ply the shining tools of mental gifts.
    I'll cut away a huge, unsightly side
        Of selfishness, and smooth to curves of grace
        The angles of ill-temper.

    And no trace
    Shall my sure hammer leave of silly pride.
        Chip after chip must fall from vain desires,
    And the sharp corners of my discontent
    Be rounded into symmetry, and lent
        Great harmony by faith that never tires.
    Unfinished still, I must toil on and on,
    Till the pale critic, Death, shall say, "'Tis done."

O now that the genius of Bewick were mine,
And the skill which he learned on the banks of the Tyne.
Then the Muses might deal with me just as they chose,
For I'd take my last leave both of verse and of prose.

What feats would I work with my magical hand!
Book-learning and books should be banished the land:
And, for hunger and thirst and such troublesome calls,
Every ale-house should then have a feast on its walls.

The traveller would hang his wet clothes on a chair;
Let them smoke, let them burn, not a straw would he care!
For the Prodigal Son, Joseph's Dream and his sheaves,
Oh, what would they be to my tale of two Thieves?

The One, yet unbreeched, is not three birthdays old,
His Grandsire that age more than thirty times told;
There are ninety good se...

There was a boy - not above childish fears -
With steps that faltered now and straining ears,
Timid, irresolute, yet dauntless still,
Who one bright dawn, when each remotest hill
Stood sharp and clear in Heaven's unclouded blue
And all Earth shimmered with fresh-beaded dew,
Risen in the first beams of the gladdening sun,
Walked up into the mountains. One by one
Each towering trunk beneath his sturdy stride
Fell back, and ever wider and more wide
The boundless prospect opened. Long he strayed,
From dawn till the last trace of slanting shade
Had vanished from the canyons, and, dismayed
At that far length to which his path had led,
He paused - at such a height where overhead
The clouds hung close, the air came thin and chill,
And all was hushed and calm and very ...

I

Sleep, little eyes
That brim with childish tears amid thy play,
Be comforted!No grief of night can weigh
Against the joys that throng thy coming day.

Sleep, little heart!
There is no place in Slumberland for tears:
Life soon enough will bring its chilling fears
And sorrows that will dim the after years.
Sleep, little heart!


II

Ah, little eyes
Dead blossoms of a springtime long ago,
That life's storm crushed and left to lie below
The benediction of the falling snow!

Sleep, little heart
That ceased so long ago its frantic beat!
The years that come and go with silent feet
Have naught to tell save this, that rest is sweet.
Dear little heart.

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

‘I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces,
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins. . . . ‘
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,

1 Generous, gay, and gallant nation,
Bold in arms, and bright in arts;
Land secure from all invasion,
All but Cupid's gentle darts!
From your charms, oh! who would run?
Who would leave you for the sun?
Happy soil, adieu, adieu!

2 Let old charmers yield to new;
In arms, in arts, be still more shining:
All your joys be still increasing;
All your tastes be still refining;
All your jars for ever ceasing;
But let old charmers yield to new:
Happy soil, adieu, adieu!

But here no cannon thunders to the gale;
Upon the wave no haughty pendants cast
A crimson splendour: lowly is the mast
That rises here, and humbly spread, the sail;
While, less disturbed than in the narrow Vale
Through which with strange vicissitudes he passed,
The Wanderer seeks that receptacle vast
Where all his unambitious functions fail
And may thy Poet, cloud-born Stream! be free
The sweets of earth contentedly resigned,
And each tumultuous working left behind
At seemly distance, to advance like Thee;
Prepared, in peace of heart, in calm of mind
And soul, to mingle with Eternity!

MORTAL:
    'The night is cold, the hour is late, the world is bleak and
drear;
    Who is it knocking at my door?'

THE NEW YEAR:
    'I am Good Cheer.'

MORTAL:
    'Your voice is strange; I know you not; in shadows dark I grope.
    What seek you here?'

THE NEW YEAR:
    'Friend, let me in; my name is Hope.'

MORTAL:
    'And mine is Failure; you but mock the life you seek to bless.
    Pass on.'

THE NEW YEAR:
    'Nay, open wide the door; I am Success.'

MORTAL:
    'But I am ill and spent with pain; too late has come your wealth.
    I cannot use it.'

THE NEW YEAR:
    'Listen, friend; I am Good Health.'

MORTAL:
    'Now, wide I fling my door.    Come in, and your fair statements

O! I care not that my earthly lot
Hath little of Earth in it,
That years of love have been forgot
In the fever of a minute:

I heed not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I,
But that you meddle with my fate
Who am a passer by.

It is not that my founts of bliss
Are gushing, strange! with tears,
Or that the thrill of a single kiss
Hath palsied many years,

'Tis not that the flowers of twenty springs
Which have wither'd as they rose
Lie dead on my heart-strings
With the weight of an age of snows.

Not that the grass, O! may it thrive!
On my grave is growing or grown,
But that, while I am dead yet alive
I cannot be, lady, alone.

"What is the world, O soldiers?
It is I:
I, this incessant snow,
This northern sky;
Soldiers, this solitude
Through which we go
    Is I."

Tune - "The gardener wi' his paidle."


I.

    When rosy May comes in wi' flowers,
    To deck her gay green-spreading bowers,
    Then busy, busy are his hours,
        The gard'ner wi' his paidle
    The crystal waters gently fa';
    The merry birds are lovers a';
    The scented breezes round him blaw,
        The gard'ner wi' his paidle.

II.

    When purple morning starts the hare
    To steal upon her early fare,
    Then thro' the dews he maun repair,
        The gard'ner wi' his paidle.
    When day, expiring in the west,
    The curtain draws of nature's rest,
    He flies to her arms he lo'es best,
        The gard'ner wi' his paidle.

I had no where to go,
    I had no money to spend:
"O come with me," the Beaver said,
    "I live at the world's end."

"Does the world ever end!"
    To the Beaver then said I:
"O yes! the green world ends," he said,
    "Up there in the blue sky."

I walked along with him to home,
    At the edge of a singing stream -
The little faces in the town
    Seemed made out of a dream.

I sat down in the little house,
    And ate with the kind things -
Then suddenly a bird comes out
    Of the bushes, and he sings:

"Have you no home? O take my nest,
    It almost is the sky;"
And then there came along the creek
    A purple dragon-fly.

"Have you no home?" he said;
    "O come along with me,
Get on my wings - t...