THE husband's dire mishap, and silly maid,
In ev'ry age, have proved the fable's aid;
The fertile subject never will be dry:
'Tis inexhaustible, you may rely.
No man's exempt from evils such as these: -
Who thinks himself secure, but little sees.
One laughs at sly intrigues who, ere 'tis long,
May, in his turn, be sneered at by the throng:
With such vicissitudes, to be cast down,
Appears rank nonsense worthy Folly's crown.
He, whose adventures I'm about to write,
In his mischances, - found what gave delight.

A CERTAIN Citizen, with fortune large,
When settled with a handsome wife in charge,
Not long attended for the marriage fruit:
The lady soon put matters 'yond dispute;
Produced a girl at first, and then a boy,
To fill th' expecting parent's breas...

I had this thought a while ago,
"My darling cannot understand
What I have done, or what would do
In this blind bitter land."
And I grew weary of the sun
Until my thoughts cleared up again,
Remembering that the best I have done
Was done to make it plain;
That every year I have cried, "At length
My darling understands it all,
Because I have come into my strength,
And words obey my call";
That had she done so who can say
What would have shaken from the sieve?
I might have thrown poor words away
And been content to live.

How tired I am! I sink down all alone
Here by the wayside of the Present. Lo,
Even as a child I hide my face and moan -
A little girl that may no farther go;
The path above me only seems to grow
    More rugged, climbing still, and ever briered
With keener thorns of pain than these below;
And O the bleeding feet that falter so
    And are so very tired!

Why, I have journeyed from the far-off Lands
Of Babyhood - where baby-lilies blew
Their trumpets in mine ears, and filled my hands
With treasures of perfume and honey-dew,
And where the orchard shadows ever drew
    Their cool arms round me when my cheeks were fired
With too much joy, and lulled mine eyelids to,
And only let the starshine trickle through
    In sprays, when I was tired!

Ye...

It is most true that eyes are form'd to serue
The inward light, and that the heauenly part
Ought to be King, from whose rules who do swerue,
Rebels to nature, striue for their owne smart.
It is most true, what we call Cupids dart
An image is, which for ourselues we carue,
And, foolse, adore in temple of our hart,
Till that good god make church and churchmen starue.
True, that true beautie virtue is indeed,
Whereof this beautie can be but a shade,
Which, elements with mortal mixture breed.
True, that on earth we are but pilgrims made,
And should in soule up to our countrey moue:
True, and yet true that I must Stella loue.

Love, under Friendship's vesture white,
Laughs, his little limbs concealing;
And oft in sport, and oft in spite,
Like Pity meets the dazzled sight,
Smiles thro' his tears revealing.

But now as Rage the God appears!
He frowns, and tempests shake his frame!--
Frowning, or smiling, or in tears,
'Tis Love; and Love is still the same.

Samson, the strongest of the children of men,
I sing; how he was foiled by woman's arts,
by a false wife brought to the gates of death!

O Truth! that shinest with propitious beams,
turning our earthly night to heavenly day,
from presence of the Almighty Father,
thou visitest our darkling world with blessed feet,
bringing good news of Sin and Death destroyed!

O whiterobed Angel,
guide my timorous hand to write as on a lofty rock with iron pen the words of truth,
that all who pass may read.
Now Night, noontide of damned spirits,
over the silent earth spreads her pavilion,
while in dark council sat Philista's lords;
and, where strength failed, black thoughts in ambush lay.

Their helmed youth and aged warriors in dust together lie,
and Desolation...

    J. Thomas Gordon left home one day,
    Left home for good and all -
    A boy has a right to have his own way
    When he's nearly six foot tall;
    At least, this is what J. Thomas thought,
    And in his own young eyes
    There were very few people quite so good,
    And fewer still quite so wise.

    What! tie as clever a lad as he
    Down to commonplace toil?
    Make J. Thomas Gordon a farmer lad,
    A simple son of the soil?
    Not if he knew it - 'twould be a sin;
    He wished to rise and soar.
    For men like himself who would do and dare
    Dame Fortune had much in store.

    The world was in need of brains and brawn,
    J. Thomas said modestly,
    The clever young man was in great demand -
    They would see ...

Gone to thy Heavenly Father's rest!
The flowers of Eden round thee blowing,
And on thine ear the murmurs blest
Of Siloa's waters softly flowing!
Beneath that Tree of Life which gives
To all the earth its healing leaves
In the white robe of angels clad,
And wandering by that sacred river,
Whose streams of holiness make glad
The city of our God forever!
Gentlest of spirits! not for thee
Our tears are shed, our sighs are given;
Why mourn to know thou art a free
Partaker of the joys of heaven?
Finished thy work, and kept thy faith
In Christian firmness unto death;
And beautiful as sky and earth,
When autumn's sun is downward going,
The blessed memory of thy worth
Around thy place of slumber glowing!
But woe for us! who linger still
With fe...

When summer comes, and when o'er hill and lea
The sun's strong wooing glow hath patiently
Shed o'er the earth long days his golden dower,
And then, by force of his own loving power,
Drawn the hard frost, and left it passive, free
To give forth all its sweets untiringly,
Shall not the day rise fair for thee and me,
And all life seem but as an opening flower
    When summer comes?

The days move slowly, young hearts yearn to be
Together always, cannot brook to see
Their love-days pass, and void each sunny hour,
Yet may we smile, e'en when fate's storm-clouds lower,
Waiting fulfilment of our hearts' decree
    When summer comes.

The red blood clings in her cheeks and stings
Through their tan with a fever that lightens,
And the clearness of heaven-born mountain springs
In her dark eyes dusks and brightens.
And her limbs are the limbs of an Atalanta who swings
With the youths in the sinewy games,
When the hot air sings thro' the hair it flings,
And the circus roars hoarse with their names,
As they fly to the goal that flames.

A voice as deep as wan waters that sweep
Thro' the musical reeds of a river;
A song of red reapers that bind and reap,
With the ring of curved scythes that quiver.
The note-like lisp of the pippins that leap,
Ripe-mellowed to gold, to the ground;
The murmurous sleep that the cool leaves keep
On close lips that trickle with sound.

And sweet is the b...

I

Time gathers to my name;
Along the ways wheredown my feet have passed
I see the years with little triumph crowned,
Exulting not for perils dared, downcast
And weary-eyed and desolate for shame
Of having been unstirred of all the sound
Of the deep music of the men that move
Through the world's days in suffering and love.

Poor barren years that brooded over-much
On your own burden, pale and stricken years,
Go down to your oblivion, we part
With no reproach or ceremonial tears.
Henceforth my hands are lifted to the touch
Of hands that labour with me, and my heart
Hereafter to the world's heart shall be set
And its own pain forget.
Time gathers to my name,
Days dead are dark; the days to be, a flame
Of wonder and of promise, and great ...

I never saw a girl or boy
So prone as Sophie to destroy
Whate'er she laid her hands upon,
Though tough as wood, or hard as stone;
With Sophie it was all the same,
No matter who the thing might claim,
No matter were it choice or rare,
For naught did the destroyer care.
Her playthings shared the common lot;
Though hers they were, she spared them not,
Her dolls she oft tore limb from limb,
To gratify a foolish whim.


"Fie!" said her mother, "don't you know,
That if you use your playthings so,
Kriss Kringle will in wrath refuse
To give you what you might abuse?
Remember, how in times gone by,
You've always found a rich supply
Of Christmas presents; but beware,
You'll find no more another year."


You'd think such words woul...

    For thee he thought,
    The Greek, who by the sea
    Lay in his lithe-limbed grace, as dreamily
    He gazed upon the sky begemmed with stars,
    And pondered mysteries. Ah, few the bars
    To stop that lofty spirit in its flight
    Compared with those that lock our souls in night.
    For thee he thought!
    For thee he wrought,
    The Tyrian, who of old
    His rich web wove of purple dye and gold;
    Whose little bark, outstanding many a storm,
    To ruder lands the spirit and the form
    Of Eastern culture bore. Ah! what we owe
    To him today, let sage and poet show.
    For thee he wrought!
    For thee he fought!
    The Saxon, who upheld
    The freedom of our race; whose broad-ax felled
    Imperial legions in the forest ...

As I walk the misty hill
All is languid, fogged, and still;
Not a note of any bird
Nor any motion's hint is heard,
Save from soaking thickets round
Trickle or water's rushing sound,
And from ghostly trees the drip
Of runnel dews or whispering slip
Of leaves, which in a body launch
Listlessly from the stagnant branch
To strew the marl, already strown,
With litter sodden as its own,

A rheum, like blight, hangs on the briars,
And from the clammy ground suspires
A sweet frail sick autumnal scent
Of stale frost furring weeds long spent;
And wafted on, like one who sleeps,
A feeble vapour hangs or creeps,
Exhaling on the fungus mould
A breath of age, fatigue, and cold.

Oozed from the bracken's desolate track,
By dark rains havock...

1.

Man rising to the doom that shall not err, -
Which hath most dread: the arouse of all or each;
All kindreds of all nations of all speech,
Or one by one of him and him and her?
While dust reanimate begins to stir
Here, there, beyond, beyond, reach beyond reach;
While every wave refashions on the beach
Alive or dead-in-life some seafarer.
Now meeting doth not join or parting part;
True meeting and true parting wait till then,
When whoso meet are joined for evermore,
Face answering face and heart at rest in heart: -
God bring us all rejoicing to the shore
Of happy Heaven, His sheep home to the pen.


2.

Blessèd that flock safe penned in Paradise;
Blessèd this flock which tramps in weary ways;
All form one fl...

I aimless wandered thro' the woods, and flung
My idle limbs upon a soft brown bank,
Where, thickly strewn, the worn-out russet leaves
Rustled a faint remonstrance at my tread.
The yellow fungi, shewing pallid stems,
The mossy lichen creeping o'er the stones
And making green the whitened hemlock-bark,
The dull wax of the woodland lily-bud,
On these my eye could rest, and I was still.
No sound was there save a low murmured cheep
From an ambitious nestling, and the slow
And oft-recurring plash of myriad waves
That spent their strength against the unheeding shore.
Over and through a spreading undergrowth
I saw the gleaming of the tranquil sea.
The woody scent of mosses and sweet ferns,
Mingled with the fresh brine, and came to me,
Bringing a laudanum to my ce...

She stood beneath the mistletoe
    That hung above the door,
Quite conscious of the sprig above,
    Revered by maids of yore.
A timid longing filled her heart;
    Her pulses throbbed with heat;
He sprang to where the fair girl stood.
"May I, just one, my sweet?"
He asked his love, who tossed her head,
"Just do it, if, you dare!" she said.

He sat before the fireplace
    Down at the club that night.
"She loves me not," he hotly said,
    "Therefore she did but right!"
She sat alone within her room,
    And with her finger-tips
She held his picture to her heart,
    Then pressed it to her lips.
"My loved one!" sobbed she, "if you cared
You surely would have, would have, dared."

BOOK II.


Sweet, when the great sea's water is stirred to his depths by the storm- winds,
Standing ashore to descry one afar-off mightily struggling:
Not that a neighbour's sorrow to you yields blissful enjoyment;
But that the sight hath a sweetness, of ills ourselves are exempt from.
Sweet 'tis too to behold, on a broad plain mustering, war-hosts
Arm them for some great battle, one's self unscathed by the danger:-
Yet still happier this:- To possess, impregnably guarded,
Those calm heights of the sages, which have for an origin Wisdom;
Thence to survey our fellows, observe them this way and that way
Wander amidst Life's paths, poor stragglers seeking a highway:
Watch mind battle with mind, and escutcheon rival escutcheon;
Gaze on that untold strife, which is waged 'ne...