Amid my treasures once I found
    A simple faded flower;
A flower with all its beauty fled,
    The darling of an hour.

With bitterness I gazed awhile,
    Then flung it from my sight;
For with it all came back to me
    the pain and heedless blight.

But, moved with pity and regret
    I took it up again;
For oh, so long and wearily
    In darkness it had lain.

Ah, purple pansy, once I kissed
    Your dewy petals fair;
For then, indeed, I had no thought
    Of earthly pain or care.

Your faded petals now I touch
    With sacred love and awe;
For never will my heart kneel down
    To earthly will or law.

Your velvet beauty still is dear,
    Though faded now you seem;
You drooped and died, yet still yo...

I

"There is a Thorn, it looks so old,
In truth, you'd find it hard to say
How it could ever have been young,
It looks so old and grey.
Not higher than a two years' child
It stands erect, this aged Thorn;
No leaves it has, no prickly points;
It is a mass of knotted joints,
A wretched thing forlorn.
It stands erect, and like a stone
With lichens is it overgrown.

II

"Like rock or stone, it is o'ergrown,
With lichens to the very top,
And hung with heavy tufts of moss,
A melancholy crop:
Up from the earth these mosses creep,
And this poor Thorn they clasp it round
So close, you'd say that they are bent
With plain and manifest intent
To drag it to the ground;
And all have joined in one endeavour
To bury this poor ...

Knowest thou the land where bloom the lemon trees,
And darkly gleam the golden oranges?
A gentle wind blows down from that blue sky;
Calm stands the myrtle and the laurel high.
Knowest thou the land? So far and fair!
Thou, whom I love, and I will wander there.

Knowest thou the house with all its rooms aglow,
And shining hall and columned portico?
The marble statues stand and look at me.
Alas, poor child, what have they done to thee?
Knowest thou the land? So far and fair.
My Guardian, thou and I will wander there.

Knowest thou the mountain with its bridge of cloud?
The mule plods warily: the white mists crowd.
Coiled in their caves the brood of dragons sleep;
The torrent hurls the rock from steep to steep.
Knowest thou the land? So far and fair.

The martial courage of a day is vain,
An empty noise of death the battle's roar,
If vital hope be wanting to restore,
Or fortitude be wanting to sustain,
Armies or kingdoms. We have heard a strain
Of triumph, how the labouring Danube bore
A weight of hostile corses; drenched with gore
Were the wide fields, the hamlets heaped with slain.
Yet see (the mighty tumult overpast)
Austria a daughter of her Throne hath sold!
And her Tyrolean Champion we behold
Murdered, like one ashore by shipwreck cast,
Murdered without relief. Oh! blind as bold,
To think that such assurance can stand fast!

"Oh father, let us hence, for hark,
A fearful murmur shakes the air.
The clouds are coming swift and dark:
What horrid shapes they wear!
A winged giant sails the sky;
Oh father, father, let us fly!"

"Hush, child; it is a grateful sound,
That beating of the summer shower;
Here, where the boughs hang close around,
We'll pass a pleasant hour,
Till the fresh wind, that brings the rain,
Has swept the broad heaven clear again."

"Nay, father, let us haste, for see,
That horrid thing with horned brow,
His wings o'erhang this very tree,
He scowls upon us now;
His huge black arm is lifted high;
Oh father, father, let us fly!"

"Hush, child;" but, as the father spoke,
Downward the livid firebolt came,
Close to his ear the thunder brok...

Here’s yer toy balloons! All sizes!
Twenty cents for that. It rises
Jest as quick as that ’ere, Miss,
Twice as big. Ye see it is
Some more fancy. Make it square
Fifty for ’em both. That’s fair.

That’s the sixth I’ve sold since noon.
Trade’s reviving. Just as soon
As this lot’s worked off, I’ll take
Wholesale figgers. Make or break,
That’s my motto! Then I’ll buy
In some first-class lottery
One half ticket, numbered right
As I dreamed about last night.

That’ll fetch it. Don’t tell me!
When a man’s in luck, you see,
All things help him. Every chance
Hits him like an avalanche.
Here’s your toy balloons, Miss. Eh?
You won’t turn your face this way?
Mebbe you’ll be glad some day.
With that clear ten thousand prize
This ’yer...

The story of the following ballad was related to me, when a school boy, as a fact which had really happened in the North of England. I have adopted the metre of Mr. Lewis's Alonzo and Imogene--a poem deservedly popular.


MARY.

I.

Who is she, the poor Maniac, whose wildly-fix'd eyes
    Seem a heart overcharged to express?
She weeps not, yet often and deeply she sighs,
She never complains, but her silence implies
    The composure of settled distress.


II.

No aid, no compassion the Maniac will seek,
    Cold and hunger awake not her care:
Thro' her rags do the winds of the winter blow bleak
On her poor withered bosom half bare, and her cheek
    Has the deathy pale hue of despair.


III.

Yet chearful and happy,...

Se 'l dolce sguardo di costei m' ancide.

HE IS CONTINUALLY IN FEAR OF DISPLEASING HER.


    If thus the dear glance of my lady slay,
On her sweet sprightly speech if dangers wait,
If o'er me Love usurp a power so great,
Oft as she speaks, or when her sun-smiles play;
Alas! what were it if she put away,
Or for my fault, or by my luckless fate,
Her eyes from pity, and to death's full hate,
Which now she keeps aloof, should then betray.
Thus if at heart with terror I am cold,
When o'er her fair face doubtful shadows spring,
The feeling has its source in sufferings old.
Woman by nature is a fickle thing,
And female hearts--time makes the proverb sure--
Can never long one state of love endure.

MACGREGOR.


    If the sof...

I wandered o'er the vast green plains of youth,
And searched for Pleasure.    On a distant height
Fame's silhouette stood sharp against the skies.
Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway
I caught the glimmer of a golden goal,
While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love.

Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed at Love
With all the haughty insolence of youth,
As past her bower I strode to seek my goal.
"Now will I climb to glory's dizzy height,"
I said, "for there above the common way
Doth pleasure dwell companioned by the skies."

But when I reached that summit near the skies,
So far from man I seemed, so far from Love -
"Not here," I cried, "doth Pleasure find her way."
Seen from the distant borderland of youth,
Fame smiles upon us from he...

1

When the pine tosses its cones
To the song of its waterfall tones,
Who speeds to the woodland walks?
To birds and trees who talks?
Caesar of his leafy Rome,
There the poet is at home.
He goes to the river-side,--
Not hook nor line hath he;
He stands in the meadows wide,--
Nor gun nor scythe to see.
Sure some god his eye enchants:
What he knows nobody wants.
In the wood he travels glad,
Without better fortune had,
Melancholy without bad.
Knowledge this man prizes best
Seems fantastic to the rest:
Pondering shadows, colors, clouds,
Grass-buds and caterpillar-shrouds,
Boughs on which the wild bees settle,
Tints that spot the violet's petal,
Why Nature loves the number five,
And why the star-form she repeats:
Lover o...

Think not some knowledge rests with thee alone;
    Why, even God's stupendous secret, Death,
    We one by one, with our expiring breath,
Do pale with wonder seize and make our own;
The bosomed treasures of the earth are shown,
    Despite her careful hiding; and the air
    Yields its mysterious marvels in despair
To swell the mighty store-house of things known.
In vain the sea expostulates and raves;
    It cannot cover from the keen world's sight
    The curious wonders of its coral caves.
And so, despite thy caution or thy tears,
The prying fingers of detective years
    Shall drag thy secret out into the light.

It was the winter wild,
While the heaven-born Child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to Him
Had doffed her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fair
She woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw,
Confounded that her Maker's eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

But He, her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace;
She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphere,
His ready harbinger,
With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;<...

Make haste away, and let one be
A friendly patron unto thee;
Lest, rapt from hence, I see thee lie
Torn for the use of pastery;
Or see thy injured leaves serve well
To make loose gowns for mackerel;
Or see the grocers, in a trice,
Make hoods of thee to serve out spice.

I saw him steal the light away
That haunted in her eye:
It went so gently none could say
More than that it was there one day
And missing by-and-by.

I watched her longer, and he stole
Her lily tincts and rose;
All her young sprightliness of soul
Next fell beneath his cold control,
And disappeared like those.

I asked: "Why do you serve her so?
Do you, for some glad day,
Hoard these her sweets - ?" He said, "O no,
They charm not me; I bid Time throw
Them carelessly away."

Said I: "We call that cruelty -
We, your poor mortal kind."
He mused. "The thought is new to me.
Forsooth, though I men's master be,
Theirs is the teaching mind!"

A few brief years have passed away
Since Britain drove her million slaves
Beneath the tropic's fiery ray:
God willed their freedom; and to-day
Life blooms above those island graves!
He spoke! across the Carib Sea,
We heard the clash of breaking chains,
And felt the heart-throb of the free,
The first, strong pulse of liberty
Which thrilled along the bondman's veins.
Though long delayed, and far, and slow,
The Briton's triumph shall be ours:
Wears slavery here a prouder brow
Than that which twelve short years ago
Scowled darkly from her island bowers?
Mighty alike for good or ill
With mother-land, we fully share
The Saxon strength, the nerve of steel,
The tireless energy of will,
The power to do, the pride to dare.
What she has done can we no...

When o'er the street the morning peal is flung
From yon tall belfry with the brazen tongue,
Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale,
To each far listener tell a different tale.
The sexton, stooping to the quivering floor
Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar,
Whirls the hot axle, counting, one by one,
Each dull concussion, till his task is done.
Toil's patient daughter, when the welcome note
Clangs through the silence from the steeple's throat,
Streams, a white unit, to the checkered street,
Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall meet;
The bell, responsive to her secret flame,
With every note repeats her lover's name.
The lover, tenant of the neighboring lane,
Sighing, and fearing lest he sigh in vain,
Hears the stern accents, as they come and go,

The knell was tolled--the requiem sung,
    The solemn burial-service read;
And tributes from the heart and tongue
    Were rendered to the dead.

The dead?--Religion answers, "No!
    She is not dead--She can not die!
A mortal left this vale of wo!--
    An angel lives on high!"

The earth upon her coffin-lid
    Sounded a hollow, harsh adieu!
The mound arose, and she was hid
    For ever from the view!

For ever?--Drearily the thought
    Passed, like an ice-bolt, through the brain;
When Faith the recollection brought
    That we shall meet again.

The mourners wound their silent way
    Adown the mountain's gentle slope,
Which, basking in the smile of May,
    Looked cheerfully as hope.

As hope?--What hope?--Tha...

As I came over Windy Gap
They threw a halfpenny into my cap,
For I am running to Paradise;
And all that I need do is to wish
And somebody puts his hand in the dish
To throw me a bit of salted fish:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

My brother Mourteen is worn out
With skelping his big brawling lout,
And I am running to Paradise;
A poor life do what he can,
And though he keep a dog and a gun,
A serving maid and a serving man:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

Poor men have grown to be rich men,
And rich men grown to be poor again,
And I am running to Paradise;
And many a darling wit’s grown dull
That tossed a bare heel when at school,
Now it has filled an old sock full:
And there the king is but as the beggar.
...