Oh, I am hurt to death, my Love;
The shafts of Fate have pierced my striving heart,
And I am sick and weary of
The endless pain and smart.
My soul is weary of the strife,
And chafes at life, and chafes at life.

Time mocks me with fair promises;
A blooming future grows a barren past,
Like rain my fair full-blossomed trees
Unburden in the blast.
The harvest fails on grain and tree,
Nor comes to me, nor comes to me.

The stream that bears my hopes abreast
Turns ever from my way its pregnant tide.
My laden boat, torn from its rest,
Drifts to the other side.
So all my hopes are set astray,
And drift away, and drift away.

The lark sings to me at the morn,
And near me wings her skyward-soaring flight;
But pleasure dies as soon as ...

Sweetest of all childlike dreams
In the simple Indian lore
Still to me the legend seems
Of the shapes who flit before.

Flitting, passing, seen and gone,
Never reached nor found at rest,
Baffling search, but beckoning on
To the Sunset of the Blest.

From the clefts of mountain rocks,
Through the dark of lowland firs,
Flash the eyes and flow the locks
Of the mystic Vanishers!

And the fisher in his skiff,
And the hunter on the moss,
Hear their call from cape and cliff,
See their hands the birch-leaves toss.

Wistful, longing, through the green
Twilight of the clustered pines,
In their faces rarely seen
Beauty more than mortal shines.

Fringed with gold their mantles flow
On the slopes of westering knolls;
I...

We sleep in the sleep of ages, the bleak, barbarian pines;
The grey moss drapes us like sages, and closer we lock our lines,
And deeper we clutch through the gelid gloom where never a sunbeam shines.

On the flanks of the storm-gored ridges are our black battalions massed;
We surge in a host to the sullen coast, and we sing in the ocean blast;
From empire of sea to empire of snow we grip our empire fast.

To the niggard lands were we driven; 'twixt desert and foe are we penned.
To us was the Northland given, ours to stronghold and defend;
Ours till the world be riven in the crash of the utter end.

Ours from the bleak beginning, through the æons of death-like sleep;
Ours from the shock when the naked rock was hurled from the hissing deep;
Ours through the twilight ages ...

O mater! O fils!
O brood continental!
O flowers of the prairies!
O space boundless! O hum of mighty products!
O you teeming cities! O so invincible, turbulent, proud!
O race of the future! O women!
O fathers! O you men of passion and the storm!
O native power only! O beauty!
O yourself! O God! O divine average!
O you bearded roughs! O bards! O all those slumberers!
O arouse! the dawn bird's throat sounds shrill! Do you not hear the cock crowing?
O, as I walk'd the beach, I heard the mournful notes foreboding a tempest--the low, oft-repeated shriek of the diver, the long-lived loon;
O I heard, and yet hear, angry thunder;--O you sailors! O ships! make quick preparation!
O from his masterful sweep, the warning cry of the eagle!
(Give way there, all! It is useless! Give up...

    "Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!
    Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore!
    And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me,
    I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly
    That I might eat again, and met thy sneers
    With deprecations, and thy blows with tears,--
    Aye, from thy glutted lash, glad, crawled away,
    As if spent passion were a holiday!
    And now I go.    Nor threat, nor easy vow
    Of tardy kindness can avail thee now
    With me, whence fear and faith alike are flown;
    Lonely I came, and I depart alone,
    And know not where nor unto whom I go;
    But that thou canst not follow me I know."

    Thus I to Life, and ceased; but through my brain
    My thought ran still, until I spake again:<...

I

She walks with the wind on the windy height
When the rocks are loud and the waves are white,
And all night long she calls through the night,
"O my children, come home!"
Her bleak gown, torn as a tattered cloud,
Tosses around her like a shroud,
While over the deep her voice rings loud, -
"O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!"

II

Who is she who wanders alone,
When the wind drives sheer and the rain is blown?
Who walks all night and makes her moan,
"O my children, come home!"
Whose face is raised to the blinding gale;
Whose hair blows black and whose eyes are pale,
While over the world goes by her wail, -
"O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!"

III

She walk...

L' oro e le perle, e i fior vermigli e i bianchi.

HE INVEIGHS AGAINST LAURA'S MIRROR, BECAUSE IT MAKES HER FORGET HIM.


    Those golden tresses, teeth of pearly white,
Those cheeks' fair roses blooming to decay,
Do in their beauty to my soul convey
The poison'd arrows from my aching sight.
Thus sad and briefly must my days take flight,
For life with woe not long on earth will stay;
But more I blame that mirror's flattering sway,
Which thou hast wearied with thy self-delight.
Its power my bosom's sovereign too hath still'd,
Who pray'd thee in my suit--now he is mute,
Since thou art captured by thyself alone:
Death's seeds it hath within my heart instill'd,
For Lethe's stream its form doth constitute,
And makes thee lose each image but thine ...

What am I, and what is he
Who can cull and tear a heart,
As one might a rose for sport
In its royalty?

What am I, that he has made
All this love a bitter foam,
Blown about a life of loam
That must break and fade?

He who of my heart could make
Hollow crystal where his face
Like a passion had its place
Holy and then break!

Shatter with insensate jeers! -
But these weary eyes are dry,
Tearless clear, and if I die
They shall know no tears.

Yet my heart weeps; - let it weep!
Let it weep in sullen pain,
And this anguish in my brain
Cry itself to sleep.

Ah! the afternoon is warm,
And yon fields are glad and fair;
Many happy creatures there
Thro' the woodland swarm.

All the summer land is stil...

Ay! gloriously thou standest there,
Beautiful, boundles firmament!
That, swelling wide o'er earth and air,
And round the horizon bent,
With thy bright vault, and sapphire wall,
Dost overhang and circle all.

Far, far below thee, tall old trees
Arise, and piles built up of old,
And hills, whose ancient summits freeze
In the fierce light and cold.
The eagle soars his utmost height,
Yet far thou stretchest o'er his flight.

Thou hast thy frowns, with thee on high
The storm has made his airy seat,
Beyond that soft blue curtain lie
His stores of hail and sleet.
Thence the consuming lightnings break,
There the strong hurricanes awake.

Yet art thou prodigal of smiles,
Smiles, sweeter than thy frowns are stern:
Earth sends, from all...

The little cottage stood alone, the pride
Of solitude surrounded every side.
Bean fields in blossom almost reached the wall;
A garden with its hawthorn hedge was all
The space between.--Green light did pass
Through one small window, where a looking-glass
Placed in the parlour, richly there revealed
A spacious landscape and a blooming field.
The pasture cows that herded on the moor
Printed their footsteps to the very door,
Where little summer flowers with seasons blow
And scarcely gave the eldern leave to grow.
The cuckoo that one listens far away
Sung in the orchard trees for half the day;
And where the robin lives, the village guest,
In the old weedy hedge the leafy nest
Of the coy nightingale was yearly found,
Safe from all eyes as in the loneliest grou...

Oh, who would be sad tho' the sky be a-graying,
And meadow and woodlands are empty and bare;
For softly and merrily now there come playing,
The little white birds thro' the winter-kissed air.

The squirrel's enjoying the rest of the thrifty,
He munches his store in the old hollow tree;
Tho' cold is the blast and the snow-flakes are drifty
He fears the white flock not a whit more than we.

Chorus:

Then heigho for the flying snow!
Over the whitened roads we go,
With pulses that tingle,
And sleigh-bells a-jingle
For winter's white birds here's a cheery heigho!

When my mother is n't here,
And I just won't go to bed,
And it's cold outside and near
Christmas; and the kitchen-shed
'S covered thick with frost and snow;
Then my nurse she says, "Oh! oh!
Better get to bed! My Laws!
Think I hear Old Santa Claus!"

Then I hurry; never kick,
Squirm or cry or anything:
But jump into bed right quick:
'Fraid to look around; and cling
Fast to nurse; and close my eyes
Tight: she looking just as wise!
Scared, too, don't you know? because
She fast heard Old Santa Claus.

Why in goodness I'm afraid
I don't know. For Santa's good,
So they say, and brings much aid
To all folks. It's understood
Specially to girls and boys,
Christmas-trees and cakes and toys;
But there must be some good cause
M...

    Now, Kennedy, if foot or horse
    E'er bring you in by Mauchline Cross,
    L--d, man, there's lasses there wad force
        A hermit's fancy.
    And down the gate in faith they're worse
        And mair unchancy.

    But as I'm sayin', please step to Dow's,
    And taste sic gear as Johnnie brews,
    Till some bit callan bring me news
        That ye are there,
    And if we dinna hae a bouze
        I'se ne'er drink mair.

    It's no I like to sit an' swallow,
    Then like a swine to puke and wallow,
    But gie me just a true good fellow,
        Wi' right ingine,
    And spunkie ance to make us mellow,
        And then we'll shine.

    Now if ye're ane o' warl's folk,
    Wha rate the wearer by the cloak,
    ...

Fly, fly, my friends; I haue my deaths wound, fly;
See there that Boy, that murthring Boy I say,
Who like a theefe hid in dark bush doth ly,
Till bloudy bullet get him wrongfull pray.
So, tyran he no fitter place could spie,
Nor so faire leuell in so secret stay,
As that sweet black which veils the heau'nly eye;
There with his shot himself he close doth lay.
Poore passenger, pass now thereby I did,
And staid, pleas'd with the prospect of the place,
While that black hue from me the the bad guest hid:
But straight I saw the motions of lightning grace,
And then descried the glistrings of his dart:
But ere I could flie thence, it pierc'd my heart.

From the date that the doors of his prep-school close
On the lonely little son
He is taught by precept, insult, and blows
The Things that Are Never Done.
Year after year, without favour or fear,
From seven to twenty-two,
His keepers insist he shall learn the list
Of the things no fellow can do.
(They are not so strict with the average Pict
And it isn’t set to, etc.)

For this and not for the profit it brings
Or the good of his fellow-kind
He is and suffers unspeakable things
In body and soul and mind.
But the net result of that Primitive Cult,
Whatever else may be won,
Is definite knowledge ere leaving College
Of the Things that Are Never Done.
(An interdict which is strange to the Pict
And was never revealed to, etc.)

Slack by t...

Tune - "Seventh of November."


I.

    The day returns, my bosom burns,
        The blissful day we twa did meet,
    Tho' winter wild in tempest toil'd,
        Ne'er summer-sun was half sae sweet.
    Than a' the pride that loads the tide,
        And crosses o'er the sultry line;
    Than kingly robes, than crowns and globes,
        Heaven gave me more, it made thee mine!

II.

    While day and night can bring delight,
        Or nature aught of pleasure give,
    While joys above my mind can move,
        For thee, and thee alone I live.
    When that grim foe of life below,
        Comes in between to make us part,
    The iron hand that breaks our band,
        It breaks my bliss, it breaks my heart.

Lonely rose out-splendouring legions of roses,
How could the nightingales behold you and not sing?

By Rustwell of Georgia (from the Tariel, twelfth century).

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy - I fought it,
I hurled my youth into the grave.
I wanted the gold and I got it -
Came out with a fortune last fall, -
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it,
And somehow the gold isn't all.

No! There's the land. (Have you seen it?)
It's the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it,
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made it;
Some say it's a fine land to shun;
Maybe: but there's some as would trade it
For no land on earth - and I'm one.

You come to get rich (damned good reason),
You feel like an exile at first;
You hate it like hell for a season,
And then you are worse th...