Little Miss Brag has much to say
To the rich little lady from over the way
And the rich little lady puts out a lip
As she looks at her own white, dainty slip,
And wishes that she could wear a gown
As pretty as gingham of faded brown!
For little Miss Brag she lays much stress
On the privileges of a gingham dress -
"Aha,
Oho!"

The rich little lady from over the way
Has beautiful dolls in vast array;
Yet she envies the raggedy home-made doll
She hears our little Miss Brag extol.
For the raggedy doll can fear no hurt
From wet, or heat, or tumble, or dirt!
Her nose is inked, and her mouth is, too,
And one eye's black and the other's blue -
"Aha,
Oho!"

The rich little lady goes out to ride
With footmen standing up outside,
Y...

I travelled among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;
And she I cherished turned her wheel
Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
The bowers where Lucy played;
And thine too is the last green field
That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

Oh, for some cup of consummating might,
Filled with life's kind conclusion, lost in night!
A wine of darkness, that with death shall cure
This sickness called existence! Oh to find
Surcease of sorrow! quiet for the mind,
An end of thought in something dark and sure!
Mandrake and hellebore, or poison pure!
Some drug of death, wherein there are no dreams!
No more, no more, with patience, to endure
The wrongs of life, the hate of men, it seems;
Or wealth's authority, tyranny of time,
And lamentations and the boasts of man!
To hear no more the wild complaints of toil,
And struggling merit, that, unknown, must starve:
To see no more life's disregard for Art!
Oh God! to know no longer anything!
Nor good, nor evil, or what either means!
Nor hear the changing tid...

She laid it where the sunbeams fall
Unscann'd upon the broken wall.
Without a tear, without a groan,
She laid it near a mighty stone,
Which some rude swain had haply cast
Thither in sport, long ages past,
And Time with mosses had o'erlaid,
And fenced with many a tall grassblade,
And all about bid roses bloom
And violets shed their soft perfume.
There, in its cool and quiet bed,
She set her burden down and fled:
Nor flung, all eager to escape,
One glance upon the perfect shape
That lay, still warm and fresh and fair,
But motionless and soundless there.

No human eye had mark'd her pass
Across the linden-shadow'd grass
Ere yet the minster clock chimed seven:
Only the innocent birds of heaven -
The magpie, and the rook whose nest
Swi...

[From Farmer Harrington's Calendar.]


APRIL 25, 18 - .

        RAIN - rain - rain - for three good solid fluid weeks -
        Till the air swims, and all creation leaks!
        And street-cars furnish still less room to spare,
        And hackmen several times have earned their fare.
        The omnibuses lumber through the din,
        And carry clay outside as well as in;
        The elevated trains, with jerky care,
        Haul half-way comfort through the dripping air;
        The gutters gallop past the liquid scene,
        As brisk as meadow brooks, though not so clean;
        What trees the city keeps for comfort's sake,
        Are shedding tears as if their hearts would break;
        And water tries to get, by storming steady,

The pale blue gloom of evening comes
Among the phantom forests and walls
With a mournful and rythmic sound of drums.
My heart is disturbed with a sound of myriad throbbing,
Persuasive and sinister, near and far:
In the blue evening of my heart
I hear the thrum of the evening star.
My work is uncompleted; and yet I hurry,
Hearing the whispered pulsing of those drums,
To enter the luminous walls and woods of night.
It is the eternal mistress of the world
Who shakes these drums for my delight.
Listen! the drums of the leaves, the drums of the dust,
The delicious quivering of this air!
I will leave my work unfinished, and I will go
With ringing and certain step through the laughter of chaos
To the one small room in the void I know.
Yesterday it was there,

Out of the church she followed them
    With a lofty step and mien:
His bride was like a village maid,
    Maude Clare was like a queen.

'Son Thomas,' his lady mother said,
    With smiles, almost with tears:
'May Nell and you but live as true
    As we have done for years;

'Your father thirty years ago
    Had just your tale to tell;
But he was not so pale as you,
    Nor I so pale as Nell.'

My lord was pale with inward strife,
    And Nell was pale with pride;
My lord gazed long on pale Maude Clare
    Or ever he kissed the bride.

'Lo, I have brought my gift, my lord,
    Have brought my gift,' she said:
'To bless the hearth, to bless the board,
    To bless the marriage-bed.

'Here's my half of the golden cha...

I am running forth to meet you, O my Master,
For they tell me you are surely on the way;
Yes, they tell me you are coming back again
(While I run, while I run).
And I wish my feet were winged to speed on faster,
And I wish I might behold you here to-day,
Lord of men.

I am running, yet I walk beside my neighbour,
And I take the duties given me to do;
Yes, I take the daily duties as they fall
(While I run, while I run),
And my heart runs to my hand and helps the labour,
For I think this is the way that leads to you,
Lord of all.

I am running, yet I turn from toil and duty,
Oftentimes to just the art of being glad;
Yes, to just the joys that make the earth-world bright
(While I run, while I run).
For the soul that worships God must worship b...

How gorgeous that shock of red lilies, and larkspur cleaving
All with a flash of blue! - when will she be leaving
Her room, where the night still hangs like a half- folded bat,
And passion unbearable seethes in the darkness, like must in a vat.

Good old days--dear old days
When my heart beat high and bold--
When the things of earth seemed full of life,
And the future a haze of gold!
Oh, merry was I that winter night,
And gleeful our little one's din,
And tender the grace of my darling's face
As we watched the new year in.
But a voice--a spectre's, that mocked at love--
Came out of the yonder hall;
"Tick-tock, tick-tock!" 't was the solemn clock
That ruefully croaked to all.
Yet what knew we of the griefs to be
In the year we longed to greet?
Love--love was the theme of the sweet, sweet dream
I fancied might never fleet!

But the spectre stood in that yonder gloom,
And these were the words it spake,
"Tick-tock, tick-tock"--and they seemed to mock
A heart about to break.

...

Comes the broken flower -
Comes the cheated maid -
Though the tempest lower,
Rain and cloud will fade!
Take, O maid, these posies:
Though thy beauty rare
Shame the blushing roses,
They are passing fair!
Wear the flowers till they fade;
Happy be thy life, O maid!

O'er the season vernal,
Time may cast a shade;
Sunshine, if eternal,
Makes the roses fade:
Time may do his duty;
Let the thief alone -
Winter hath a beauty
That is all his own.
Fairest days are sun and shade:
Happy be thy life, O maid!

Honour and happiness unite
To make the Christian’s name a praise;
How fair the scene, how clear the light,
That fills the remnant of his days!


A kingly character he bears,
No change his priestly office knows;
Unfading is the crown he wears,
His joys can never reach a close.


Adorn’d with glory from on high,
Salvation shines upon his face;
His robe is of the ethereal dye,
His steps are dignity and grace.


Inferior honours he disdains,
Nor stoops to take applause from earth:
The King of kings himself maintains
The expenses of his heavenly birth.


The noblest creature seen below,
Ordain’d to fill a throne above;
God gives him all he can bestow,
His kingdom of eternal love.


My soul is rav...

Who can forget fair freedom's bird,
That has her genuine praises heard,
    Confirm'd by frequent proof?
The patriot stork is sure to share
The brave Batavian's generous care,
    While breeding on his roof,

In all her early, brightest, days,
When Holland won immortal praise
    Her Spanish tyrant's dread!
She play'd not her heroic part
With spirit, nobler than the heart,
    Of one mild bird she bred.

It was a female Stork, whose mind
Shew'd all the mother, bravely kind,
    In trial's fiercest hour;
This bird had blest her happy lot,
High-nested on a fisher's cot,
    As stedfast as a tower.

Her host, a man benignly mild,
Was happy in a darling child
    Who now had woman's air;
Her face intelligent and sweet,
...

Sleep on, dear, now
The last sleep and the best,
And on thy brow,
And on thy quiet breast
Violets I throw.

Thy scanty years
Were mine a little while;
Life had no fears
To trouble thy brief smile
With toil or tears.

Lie still, and be
For evermore a child!
Not grudgingly,
Whom life has not defiled,
I render thee.

Slumber so deep,
No man would rashly wake;
I hardly weep,
Fain only, for thy sake.
To share thy sleep.

Yes, to be dead,
Dead, here with thee to-day,--
When all is said
'Twere good by thee to lay
My weary head.

The very best!
Ah, child so tired of play,
I stand confessed:
I want to come thy way,
And share thy rest.

If life were but a dream, my Love,
And death the waking time;
If day had not a beam, my Love,
And night had not a rhyme,--
A barren, barren world were this
Without one saving gleam;
I 'd only ask that with a kiss
You 'd wake me from the dream.

If dreaming were the sum of days,
And loving were the bane;
If battling for a wreath of bays
Could soothe a heart in pain,--
I 'd scorn the meed of battle's might,
All other aims above
I 'd choose the human's higher right,
To suffer and to love!

The Demon, in my chamber high,
This morning came to visit me,
And, thinking he would find some fault,
He whispered: "I would know of thee

Among the many lovely things
That make the magic of her face,
Among the beauties, black and rose,
That make her body's charm and grace,

Which is most fair?" Thou didst reply
To the Abhorred, O soul of mine:
"No single beauty is the best
When she is all one flower divine.

When all things charm me I ignore
Which one alone brings most delight;
She shines before me like the dawn,
And she consoles me like the night.

The harmony is far too great,
That governs all her body fair,
For impotence to analyse
And say which note is sweetest there.

O mystic metamorphosis!
My senses int...

    So soon he fell, the world will never know
    What possibilities within him lay,
What hopes irradiated his young life,
With high ambition and with ardor rife;
    But ah! the speedy summons came, and so
        He passed away.

    So soon he fell, there lie unfinished plans
    By others misapplied, misunderstood;
And doors are barred that wait the master-key -
That wait his magic Open Sesame! -
    To that assertive power that commands
        The multitude.

    Too soon he fell! Was he not born to prove
    What manhood and integrity might be -
How one from all base elements apart
Might walk serene, in purity of heart,
    His face the bright transparency of love
        And sympathy?

    The student ranks are closed, there i...

Toward even, when the day leans down
    To kiss the upturned face of night,
Out just beyond the loud-voiced town
    I know a spot of calm delight.
Like crimson arrows from a quiver
    The red rays pierce the waters flowing,
    While we go dreaming, singing, rowing
To Leudemanns-on-the-River.

The hills, like some glad mocking-bird,
    Send back our laughter and our singing,
While faint - and yet more faint is heard
    The steeple bells all sweetly ringing.
Some message did the winds deliver
    To each glad heart that August night,
    All heard, but all heard not aright,
By Leudemanns-on-the-River.

Night falls as in some foreign clime,
    Between the hills that slope and rise.
So dusk the shades at landing-time,
    We could n...