I.

O Dark-Eyed goddess of the marble brow,
Whose look is silence and whose touch is night,
Who walkest lonely through the world, O thou,
Who sittest lonely with Life's blown-out light;
Who in the hollow hours of night's noon
Criest like some lost child;
Whose anguish-fevered eyeballs seek the moon
To cool their pulses wild.
Thou who dost bend to kiss Joy's sister cheek,
Turning its rose to alabaster; yea,
Thou who art terrible and mad and meek,
Why in my heart art thou enshrined to-day?
O Sorrow say, O say!

II.

Now Spring is here and all the world is white,
I will go forth, and where the forest robes
Itself in green, and every hill and height
Crowns its fair head with blossoms, spirit globes
Of hyacinth and crocus dashed with d...

    Serus in coelum redeas, diuque
    Laetus intersis populo. - HOR., Carm. I, ii, 45.


Great, good, and just, was once applied
To one who for his country died;[l]
To one who lives in its defence,
We speak it in a happier sense.
O may the fates thy life prolong!
Our country then can dread no wrong:
In thy great care we place our trust,
Because thou'rt great, and good, and just:
Thy breast unshaken can oppose
Our private and our public foes:
The latent wiles, and tricks of state,
Your wisdom can with ease defeat.
When power in all its pomp appears,
It falls before thy rev'rend years,
And willingly resigns its place
To something nobler in thy face.
When once the fierce pursuing Gaul
Had drawn his sword for Marius' fall,
The...

Readers, we entreat ye pray
For the soul of Lucia;
That in little time she be
From her purgatory free:
In the interim she desires
That your tears may cool her fires.

(See Note 52)

And that was Olaf Trygvason,
Going o'er the North Sea grim,
Straight for his home and kingdom steering,
Where none awaited him.
Now the first mountains tower;
Are they walls, on the ocean that lower?

And that was Olaf Trygvason,
Fast the land seemed locked at first,
All of his youthful, kingly longings
Doomed on the cliffs to burst, -
Until a skald discovered
Shining domes in the cloud-mists, that hovered.

And that was Olaf Trygvason,
Seemed to see before his eyes
Mottled and gray some timeless temple
Lifting white domes to the skies.
Sorely he longed to win it,
Stand and hallow his young faith within it.

You are a dear, sweet girl,
God bless you and keep you -
Wish I could afford to do so.

A trader sailed from Stepney town -
Wake her up! Shake her up! Try her with the mainsail!
A trader sailed from Stepney town
With a keg full of gold and a velvet gown:
Ho, the bully rover Jack,
Waiting with his yard aback
Out upon the Lowland sea!

The trader he had a daughter fair -
Wake her up! Shake her up! Try her with the foresail
The trader he had a daughter fair,
She had gold in her ears, and gold in her hair:
All for bully rover Jack,
Waiting with his yard aback,
Out upon the Lowland sea!

'Alas the day, oh daughter mine!' -
Shake her up! Wake her up! Try her with the topsail!
'Alas the day, oh daughter mine!
Yon red, red flag is a fearsome sign!'
Ho, the bully rover Jack,
Reaching on the weather tack,
Out upon the Lowland ...

"I do beseech Thee, God, show me thy face."
"Come up to me in Sinai on the morn:
Thou shalt behold as much as may be borne."
And Moses on a rock stood lone in space.
From Sinai's top, the vaporous, thunderous place,
God passed in clouds, an earthly garment worn
To hide, and thus reveal. In love, not scorn,
He put him in a cleft in the rock's base,
Covered him with his hand, his eyes to screen,
Then passed, and showed his back through mists of years.
Ah, Moses! had He turned, and hadst thou seen
The pale face crowned with thorns, baptized with tears,
The eyes of the true man, by men belied,
Thou hadst beheld God's face, and straightway died.

I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods;

I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter’d by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘T is better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

March! The mud is cakin' good about our trousies.
Front!, eyes front, an' watch the Colour-casin's drip.
Front! The faces of the women in the 'ouses
Ain't the kind o' things to take aboard the ship.

Cheer! An' we'll never march to victory.
Cheer! An' we'll never live to 'ear the cannon roar!
The Large Birds o' Prey
They will carry us away,
An' you'll never see your soldiers any more!

Wheel! Oh, keep your touch; we're goin' round a corner.
Time!, mark time, an' let the men be'ind us close.
Lord! the transport's full, an' 'alf our lot not on 'er,
Cheer, O cheer! We're going off where no one knows.

March! The Devil's none so black as 'e is painted!
Cheer! We'll 'ave some fun before we're put away.
'Alt, an' 'and 'er out, a woman's gone and fainted!

This axiom I have often heard,
Kings ought to be more lov'd than fear'd.

PLATE I
Rixa super mero

They sat by their wine in the tavern that night,
But not in good fellowship true:
The Rhenish was strong and the Burgundy bright,
And hotter the argument grew.

'I asked your consent when I first sought her hand,
Nor did you refuse to agree,
Tho' her father declared that the half of his land
Her dower at our wedding should be.'

'No dower shall be given (the brother replied)
With a maiden of beauty so rare,
Nor yet shall my father my birthright divide,
Our lands with a foeman to share.'

The knight stood erect in the midst of the hall,
And sterner his visage became,
'Now, shame and dishonour my 'scutcheon befall
If thus I relinquish my claim."

The brother then drained a tall goblet of wine,
And ...

Come, thou blessed day of rest!
Soother of the tortured breast,
Wearied souls release from toil,
Life's eternal sad turmoil;
How I love thy tuneful bells
Which a welcome story tells!
Bids the wanderer rest and pray
On this peaceful holy-day.
All creation seems to pause--
Man, uncatechized by laws,
Looks to God with grateful eyes,
In such blessed sympathies,
All his rebel nature dies!
See the monster crime hath made,
Resting from his restless trade,
Unfit to live, afraid to die,
Hear his deep unconscious sigh,
See his former horrid mien,
Changed to the bright, serene,
View him on his BIBLE rest,
Care no longer gnaws his breast;
Heaven, in mercy, let him live,
Religion, such the peace you give!

Let all things vanish, if but you remain;
For if you stay, beloved, what is gone?
Yet, should you go, all permanence is vain,
And all the piled abundance is as none.

With you beside me in the desert sand,
Your smile upon me, and on mine your hand,
Oases green arise, and camel-bells;
For in the long adventure of your eyes
Are all the wandering ways to Paradise.

Existence, in your being, comes and goes;
What were the garden, love, without the rose?
In vain were ears to hear,
And eyes in vain,
Lacking your ordered music, sphere to sphere,
Blind, should your beauty blossom not again.

The pulse that shakes the world with rhythmic beat
Is but the passing of your little feet;
And all the singing vast of all the seas,
Down from the pole

Methought I saw my late espoused Saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
Whom Joves great Son to her glad Husband gave,
Rescu'd from death by force though pale and faint.
Mine as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint,
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such, as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:
Her face was vail'd, yet to my fancied sight,
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd
So clear, as in no face with more delight.
But O as to embrace me she enclin'd
I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.

Surprised by joy, impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport, Oh! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss? That thought's return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

Ingerid Sletten of Sillejord
Neither gold nor silver did own,
But a little hood of gay wool alone,
Her mother had given of yore.

A little hood of gay wool alone,
With no braid nor lining, was here;
But parent love made it ever dear,
And brighter than gold it shone.

She kept the hood twenty years just so:
"Be it spotless," softly she cried,
"Until I shall wear it once as bride,
When I to the altar go."

She kept the hood thirty years just so:
"Be it spotless," softly she cried,
"Then wear it I will, a gladsome bride,
When it to our Lord I show."

She kept the hood forty years just so,
With her mother ever in mind.
"Little hood, be with me to this resigned,
That ne'er to the altar we'll go."

She steps to the chest ...

The frail eidolons of all blossoms Spring,
Year after year, about the forest tossed,
The magic touch of the enchanter, Frost,
Back from the Heaven of the Flow'rs doth bring;
Each branch and bush in silence visiting
With phantom beauty of its blooms long lost:
Each dead weed bends, white-haunted of its ghost,
Each dead flower stands ghostly with blossoming.
This is the wonder-legend Nature tells
To the gray moon and mist a winter's night;
The fairy-tale, which her weird fancy 'spells
With all the glamour of her soul's delight:
Before the summoning sorcery of her eyes
Making her spirit's dream materialize.

    Deep-wooded combes, clear-mounded hills of morn,
        Red sunset tides against a red sea-wall,
        High lonely barrows where the curlews call,
    Far moors that echo to the ringing horn,--
    Devon! thou spirit of all these beauties born,
        All these are thine, but thou art more than all:
        Speech can but tell thy name, praise can but fall
    Beneath the cold white sea-mist of thy scorn.

    Yet, yet, O noble land, forbid us not
        Even now to join our faint memorial chime
    To the fierce chant wherewith their hearts were hot
        Who took the tide in thy Imperial prime;
    Whose glory's thine till Glory sleeps forgot
        With her ancestral phantoms, Pride and Time.