I'd been on duty from two till four.
I went and stared at the dug-out door.
Down in the frowst I heard them snore.
"Stand-to!" Somebody grunted and swore.
Dawn was misty; the skies were still;
Larks were singing, discordant, shrill;
They seemed happy; but I felt ill.
Deep in water I splashed my way
Up the trench to our bogged front line.
Rain had fallen the whole damned night.
O Jesus, send me a wound to-day,
And I'll believe in Your bread and wine,
And get my bloody old sins washed white!

(Aetat Six)


Now every night we light the grate
And I sit up till really late;
My Father sits upon the right,
My Mother on the left, and I
Between them on an ancient chair,
That once belonged to my Great-Gran,
Before my Father was a man.
We sit without another light;
I really, truly never tire
Watching that space, as black as night,
That hangs behind the fire;
For there sometimes, you know,
The dearest, queerest little sparks,
Without a sound creep to and fro;
Sometimes they form in rings
Or lines that look like many things,
Like skipping ropes, or hoops, or swings:
Before you know what you're about,
They all go out!

My Father says that they are gnomes,
Beyond the grate they have their homes,
In a tall, bla...

Illustration Of A Picture

They bid me strike the idle strings,
As if my summer days
Had shaken sunbeams from their wings
To warm my autumn lays;
They bring to me their painted urn,
As if it were not time
To lift my gauntlet and to spurn
The lists of boyish rhyme;
And were it not that I have still
Some weakness in my heart
That clings around my stronger will
And pleads for gentler art,
Perchance I had not turned away
The thoughts grown tame with toil,
To cheat this lone and pallid ray,
That wastes the midnight oil.

Alas! with every year I feel
Some roses leave my brow;
Too young for wisdom's tardy seal,
Too old for garlands now.
Yet, while the dewy breath of spring
Steals o'er the tingling air,
And spreads and fans...

In summer, when the Cuckoo sings,
And clouds like greater moons can shine;
When every leafy tree doth hold
A loving heart that beats with mine:
Now, when the Brook has cresses green,
As well as stones, to check his pace;
And, if the Owl appears, he's forced
By small birds to some hiding-place:
Then, like red Robin in the spring,
I shun those haunts where men are found;
My house holds little joy until
Leaves fall and birds can make no sound;
Let none invade that wilderness
Into whose dark green depths I go,
Save some fine lady, all in white,
Comes like a pillar of pure snow.

Scattering, like birds escaped the fowler's net,
Some seek with timely flight a foreign strand;
Most happy, re-assembled in a land
By dauntless Luther freed, could they forget
Their Country's woes. But scarcely have they met,
Partners in faith, and brothers in distress,
Free to pour forth their common thankfulness,
Ere hope declines: their union is beset
With speculative notions rashly sown,
Whence thickly-sprouting growth of poisonous weeds;
Their forms are broken staves; their passions, steeds
That master them. How enviably blest
Is he who can, by help of grace, enthrone
The peace of God within his single breast!

"What hast thou seen in the olden time,
    Dark ruin, lone and gray?"
"Full many a race from thy native clime,
    And the bright earth, pass away.
The organ has pealed in these roofless aisles,
    And priests have knelt to pray
At the altar, where now the daisy smiles
    O'er their silent beds of clay.

"I've seen the strong man a wailing child,
    By his mother offered here;
I've seen him a warrior fierce and wild;
    I've seen him on his bier,
His warlike harness beside him laid
    In the silent earth to rust;
His plumed helm and trusty blade
    To moulder into dust!

"I've seen the stern reformer scorn
    The things once deemed divine,
And the bigot's zeal with gems adorn
    The altar's sacred shrine.
I've seen the si...

    When my moustache curled,
    And my hair was black,
    And I wore tight trousers
    And a diamond stud,
    I was an excellent knave of hearts and took many a trick.
    But when the gray hairs began to appear -
    Lo! a new generation of girls
    Laughed at me, not fearing me,
    And I had no more exciting adventures
    Wherein I was all but shot for a heartless devil,
    But only drabby affairs, warmed-over affairs
    Of other days and other men.
    And time went on until I lived at
    Mayer's restaurant,
    Partaking of short-orders, a gray, untidy,
    Toothless, discarded, rural Don Juan. . . .
    There is a mighty shade here who sings
    Of one named Beatrice;
    And I see now that the force that made him great
    Drove...

Stay, little cheerful Robin! stay,
And at my casement sing,
Though it should prove a farewell lay
And this our parting spring.

Though I, alas! may ne'er enjoy
The promise in thy song;
A charm, 'that' thought can not destroy,
Doth to thy strain belong.

Methinks that in my dying hour
Thy song would still be dear,
And with a more than earthly power
My passing Spirit cheer.

Then, little Bird, this boon confer,
Come, and my requiem sing,
Nor fail to be the harbinger
Of everlasting Spring.

THE FIRST VOICE


He trilled a carol fresh and free,
He laughed aloud for very glee:
There came a breeze from off the sea:

It passed athwart the glooming flat,
It fanned his forehead as he sat,
It lightly bore away his hat,

All to the feet of one who stood
Like maid enchanted in a wood,
Frowning as darkly as she could.

With huge umbrella, lank and brown,
Unerringly she pinned it down,
Right through the centre of the crown.

Then, with an aspect cold and grim,
Regardless of its battered rim,
She took it up and gave it him.

A while like one in dreams he stood,
Then faltered forth his gratitude
In words just short of being rude:

For it had lost its shape and shine,
And it had cost him four-and-nine,...

Grief was my master yesternight;
To-morrow I may grieve again;
But now along the windy plain
The clouds have taken flight.

The sowers in the furrows go;
The lusty river brimmeth on;
The curtains from the hills are gone;
The leaves are out; and lo,

The silvery distance of the day,
The light horizons, and between
The glory of the perfect green,
The tumult of the May.

The bobolinks at noonday sing
More softly than the softest flute,
And lightlier than the lightest lute
Their fairy tambours ring.

The roads far off are towered with dust;
The cherry-blooms are swept and thinned;
In yonder swaying elms the wind
Is charging gust on gust.

But here there is no stir at all;
The ministers of sun and shadow
Horde ...

All human joys are swift of wing
For heaven doth so allot it
That when you get an easy thing
You find you haven't got it.

Man never yet has loved a maid,
But they were sure to part, sir;
Nor never lacked a paltry spade
But that he drew a heart, sir!

Go, Chauncey! it is plain as day
You much prefer a dinner
To walking straight in wisdom's way--
Go to, thou babbling sinner.

The froward part that you have played
To me this lesson teaches:
To trust no man whose stock in trade
Is after-dinner speeches.

Temples he built and palaces of air,
And, with the artist's parent-pride aglow,
His fancy saw his vague ideals grow
Into creations marvellously fair;

He set his foot upon Fame's nether stair.
But ah, his dream,--it had entranced him so
He could not move. He could no farther go;
But paused in joy that he was even there!

He did not wake until one day there gleamed
Thro' his dark consciousness a light that racked
His being till he rose, alert to act.
But lo! what he had dreamed, the while he dreamed,
Another, wedding action unto thought,
Into the living, pulsing world had brought.

Many, many welcomes,
February fair-maid,
Ever as of old time,
Solitary firstling,
Coming in the cold time,
Prophet of the gay time,
Prophet of the May time,
Prophet of the roses,
Many, many welcomes,
February fair-maid!

I lingered through the night to break of day,
Nor once did sleep extend a wing to me,
Intently busied with a vast array
Of epithets that should outfigure thee.

Full-featured terms - all fitless - hastened by,
And this sole speech remained: "That maiden mine!" -
Debarred from due description then did I
Perceive the indefinite phrase could yet define.

As common chests encasing wares of price
Are borne with tenderness through halls of state,
For what they cover, so the poor device
Of homely wording I could tolerate,
Knowing its unadornment held as freight
The sweetest image outside Paradise.

W. P. V.,
Summer 1866.

Hello, ole man, you 're a-gittin' gray,
An' it beats ole Ned to see the way
'At the crow's feet's a-getherin' aroun' yore eyes;
Tho' it ought n't to cause me no su'prise,
Fur there 's many a sun 'at you 've seen rise
An' many a one you 've seen go down
Sence yore step was light an' yore hair was brown,
An' storms an' snows have had their way--
Hello, ole man, you 're a-gittin' gray.

Hello, ole man, you 're a-gittin' gray,
An' the youthful pranks 'at you used to play
Are dreams of a far past long ago
That lie in a heart where the fires burn low--
That has lost the flame though it kept the glow,
An' spite of drivin' snow an' storm,
Beats bravely on forever warm.
December holds the place of May--
Hello, ole man, you 're a-gittin' gray.

Hello...

Tune - "The Highland Balou."



I.

    Hee balou! my sweet wee Donald,
    Picture o' the great Clanronald;
    Brawlie kens our wanton chief
    Wha got my young Highland thief.

II.

    Leeze me on thy bonnie craigie,
    An' thou live, thou'll steal a naigie:
    Travel the country thro' and thro',
    And bring hame a Carlisle cow.

III.

    Thro' the Lawlands, o'er the border,
    Weel, my babie, may thou furder:
    Herry the louns o' the laigh countree,
    Syne to the Highlands hame to me.

A Sense of something that is sad and strange;
Of something that is felt as death is felt,
As shadows, phantoms, in a haunted grange,
Around me seems to melt.

It rises, so it seems, from the decay
Of the dim woods; from withered leaves and weeds,
And dead flowers hanging by the woodland way
Sad, hoary heads of seeds.

And from the cricket's song, so feeble now
'T is like a sound heard in the heart, a call
Dreamier than dreams; and from the shaken bough,
From which the acorns fall.

From scents and sounds it rises, sadly slow,
This presence, that hath neither face nor form;
That in the woods sits like demented woe,
Whispering of wreck and storm.

A presence wrought of melancholy grief,
And dreams that die; that, in the streaming night,<...

The old farm-home is Mother's yet and mine,
    And filled it is with plenty and to spare, -
But we are lonely here in life's decline,
    Though fortune smiles around us everywhere:
        We look across the gold
        Of the harvests, as of old -
    The corn, the fragrant clover, and the hay
        But most we turn our gaze,
        As with eyes of other days,
    To the orchard where the children used to play.

O from our life's full measure
And rich hoard of worldly treasure
    We often turn our weary eyes away,
And hand in hand we wander
Down the old path winding yonder
    To the orchard where the children used to play

Our sloping pasture-lands are filled with herds;
    The barn and granary-bins are bulging o'er:
The grove's a...