I am not rich, and yet my wealth
Surpasseth human measure;
My store untold
Is not of gold
Nor any sordid treasure.
Let this one hoard his earthly pelf,
Another court ambition--
Not for a throne
Would I disown
My poor and proud condition!

The worldly gain achieved to-day
To-morrow may be flying--
The gifts of kings
Are fleeting things--
The gifts of love undying!
In her I love is all my wealth--
For her my sole endeavor;
No heart, I ween,
Hath fairer queen,
No liege such homage, ever!

I.

White-shrouded, latest-born of all the year,
    In thy cold hands no bud or floweret bearing,
Thou comest now to wail above the bier
    Of thy dead sisters--on thy bosom wearing
The icy jewel and the frosted gem--
But on thy marble brow the Star of Bethlehem!


II.

Beneath thy foot-prints lie the Autumn leaves,
    Mould'ring and hast'ning to decay;
And where the drifting snow its mantle weaves
    The Summer songsters sang the happy hours away.
What tho' the birds have flown the blighted stem?
There's in thy jeweled crown the Star of Bethlehem!

Round clouds roll in the arms of the wind,
The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky,
And see, where the budding hazels are thinned,
The wild anemones lie
In undulating shivers beneath the wind.

Over the blue of the waters ply
White ducks, a living flotilla of cloud;
And, look you, floating just thereby,
The blue-gleamed drake stems proud
Like Abraham, whose seed should multiply.

In the lustrous gleam of the water, there
Scramble seven toads across the silk, obscure leaves,
Seven toads that meet in the dusk to share
The darkness that interweaves
The sky and earth and water and live things everywhere.

Look now, through the woods where the beech-green spurts
Like a storm of emerald snow, look, see
A great bay stallion dances, skirts

Air - "Cauld Kail."



I.

    Come, let me take thee to my breast,
        And pledge we ne'er shall sunder;
    And I shall spurn as vilest dust
        The warld's wealth and grandeur:
    And do I hear my Jeanie own
        That equal transports move her?
    I ask for dearest life alone,
        That I may live to love her.

II.

    Thus in my arms, wi' a' thy charms,
        I clasp my countless treasure;
    I'll seek nae mair o' heaven to share,
        Than sic a moment's pleasure:
    And by thy een, sae bonnie blue,
        I swear I'm thine for ever!
    And on thy lips I seal my vow,
        And break it shall I never.

Under the stars, when the shadows fall,
    Under the stars of night;
What is so fair as the jeweled crown
Of the azure skies, when the sun is down,
    Beautiful stars of light!

Under the stars, where the daisies lie
    Lifeless beneath the snow;
Lovely and pure, they have lived a day,
Silently passing forever away,
    Lying so meek and low.

Under the stars in the long-ago--
    Under the stars to-night;
Life is the same, with its great unrest
Wearily throbbing within each breast,
    Searching for truth and light.

Under the stars as they drift along,
    Far in the azure seas;
Beautiful treasures of light and song,
Glad'ning the earth as they glide along,
    What is so fair as these?

Under the stars in the quiet...

ON THE NIGHT OF HIS FUNERAL



From the slow march and muffled drum
    And crowds distrest,
And book and bell, at length I have come
    To my full rest.

A ten years' rule beneath the sun
    Is wound up here,
And what I have done, what left undone,
    Figures out clear.

Yet in the estimate of such
    It grieves me more
That I by some was loved so much
    Than that I bore,

From others, judgment of that hue
    Which over-hope
Breeds from a theoretic view
    Of regal scope.

For kingly opportunities
    Right many have sighed;
How best to bear its devilries
    Those learn who have tried!

I have eaten the fat and drunk the sweet,
    Lived the life out
From the first greeting gl...

Dicemi spesso il mio fidato speglio.

HE AWAKES TO A CONVICTION OF THE NEAR APPROACH OF DEATH.


    My faithful mirror oft to me has told--
My weary spirit and my shrivell'd skin
My failing powers to prove it all begin--
"Deceive thyself no longer, thou art old."
Man is in all by Nature best controll'd,
And if with her we struggle, time creeps in;
At the sad truth, on fire as waters win,
A long and heavy sleep is off me roll'd;
And I see clearly our vain life depart,
That more than once our being cannot be:
Her voice sounds ever in my inmost heart.
Who now from her fair earthly frame is free:
She walk'd the world so peerless and alone,
Its fame and lustre all with her are flown.

MACGREGOR.


    The mirror'd friend--...

When Beauty and Beauty meet
All naked, fair to fair,
The earth is crying-sweet,
And scattering-bright the air,
Eddying, dizzying, closing round,
With soft and drunken laughter;
Veiling all that may befall
After, after.

Where Beauty and Beauty met,
Earth's still a-tremble there,
And winds are scented yet,
And memory-soft the air,
Bosoming, folding glints of light,
And shreds of shadowy laughter;
Not the tears that fill the years
After, after.

A track of moonlight on a quiet lake,
Whose small waves on a silver-sanded shore
Whisper of peace, and with the low winds make
Such harmonies as keep the woods awake,
And listening all night long for their sweet sake
A green-waved slope of meadow, hovered o'er
By angel-troops of lilies, swaying light
On viewless stems, with folded wings of white;
A slumberous stretch of mountain-land, far seen
Where the low westering day, with gold and green,
Purple and amber, softly blended, fills
The wooded vales, and melts among the hills;
A vine-fringed river, winding to its rest
On the calm bosom of a stormless sea,
Bearing alike upon its placid breast,
With earthly flowers and heavenly' stars impressed,
The hues of time and of eternity
Such are the pictures which th...

Out of crooked clouds priceless things grow.
Very tiny things suddenly become important.
The sky is green and opaque
Down there where the blind hills glide.
Tattered trees stagger into the distance.
Drunken meadows spin in a circle,
And all the surfaces become gray and wise...
Only villages crouch glowingly: red stars -

On such a night, or such a night,
Would anybody care
If such a little figure
Slipped quiet from its chair,

So quiet, oh, how quiet!
That nobody might know
But that the little figure
Rocked softer, to and fro?

On such a dawn, or such a dawn,
Would anybody sigh
That such a little figure
Too sound asleep did lie

For chanticleer to wake it, --
Or stirring house below,
Or giddy bird in orchard,
Or early task to do?

There was a little figure plump
For every little knoll,
Busy needles, and spools of thread,
And trudging feet from school.

Playmates, and holidays, and nuts,
And visions vast and small.
Strange that the feet so precious charged
Should reach so small a goal!

We met on "Boston Common" -
    Of course it was by chance -
A sudden, unexpected,
    But happy circumstance
That gave the dull October day
A beautiful, refulgent ray.

Like wandering refugees from
    A city of renown,
Impelled to reconnoiter
    This Massachusetts town,
Each by a common object urged,
Upon the park our paths converged.

Good nature, bubbling over
    In healthy, hearty laughs,
And little lavish speeches
    Like pleasant paragraphs,
The kind regard, unstudied joke,
His true felicity bespoke.

A bit of doleful knowledge
    Confided unto me,
About the way the doctors -
    Who never could agree -
His knees had tortured, softly drew
My sympathy and humor, too.

I hoped he wouldn't los...

With rosy hand a little girl press’d down
A boss of fresh-cull’d cowslips in a rill:
Often as they sprang up again, a frown
Show’d she dislik’d resistance to her will:
But when they droop’d their heads and shone much less,
She shook them to and fro, and threw them by,
And tripp’d away. “Ye loathe the heaviness
Ye love to cause, my little girls!” thought I,
“And what has shone for you, by you must die!”

A beautiful and happy girl,
With step as light as summer air,
Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl,
Shadowed by many a careless curl
Of unconfined and flowing hair;
A seeming child in everything,
Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms,
As Nature wears the smile of Spring
When sinking into Summer's arms.

A mind rejoicing in the light
Which melted through its graceful bower,
Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright,
And stainless in its holy white,
Unfolding like a morning flower
A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute,
With every breath of feeling woke,
And, even when the tongue was mute,
From eye and lip in music spoke.

How thrills once more the lengthening chain
Of memory, at the thought of thee!
Old hopes which long in dust ...

Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sun-light lazily lay,
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley’s restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless,
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Unceasingly, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye,
Over the lilies that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!

        If it were only still!--
        With far away the shrill
        Crying of a cock;
        Or the shaken bell
        From a cow's throat
        Moving through the bushes;
        Or the soft shock
        Of wizened apples falling
        From an old tree
        In a forgotten orchard
        Upon the hilly rock!

        Oh, grey hill,
        Where the grazing herd
        Licks the purple blossom,
        Crops the spiky weed!
        Oh, stony pasture,
        Where the tall mullein
        Stands up so sturdy
        On its little seed!

On yonder lofty mountain

A thousand times I stand,
And on my staff reclining,

Look down on the smiling land.

My grazing flocks then I follow,

My dog protecting them well;
I find myself in the valley,

But how, I scarcely can tell.

The whole of the meadow is cover'd

With flowers of beauty rare;
I pluck them, but pluck them unknowing

To whom the offering to bear.

In rain and storm and tempest,

I tarry beneath the tree,
But closed remaineth yon portal;

'Tis all but a vision to me.

High over yonder dwelling,

There rises a rainbow gay;
But she from home hath departed

And wander'd far, far away.

Yes, far away bath she wander'd,

Perchance e'en over ...

I years had been from home,
And now, before the door,
I dared not open, lest a face
I never saw before

Stare vacant into mine
And ask my business there.
My business, -- just a life I left,
Was such still dwelling there?

I fumbled at my nerve,
I scanned the windows near;
The silence like an ocean rolled,
And broke against my ear.

I laughed a wooden laugh
That I could fear a door,
Who danger and the dead had faced,
But never quaked before.

I fitted to the latch
My hand, with trembling care,
Lest back the awful door should spring,
And leave me standing there.

I moved my fingers off
As cautiously as glass,
And held my ears, and like a thief
Fled gasping from the house.