Chi vuol veder quantunque può Natura.

WHOEVER BEHOLDS HER MUST ADMIT THAT HIS PRAISES CANNOT REACH HER PERFECTION.


    Who wishes to behold the utmost might
Of Heaven and Nature, on her let him gaze,
Sole sun, not only in my partial lays,
But to the dark world, blind to virtue's light!
And let him haste to view; for death in spite
The guilty leaves, and on the virtuous preys;
For this loved angel heaven impatient stays;
And mortal charms are transient as they're bright!
Here shall he see, if timely he arrive,
Virtue and beauty, royalty of mind,
In one bless'd union join'd. Then shall he say
That vainly my weak rhymes to praise her strive,
Whose dazzling beams have struck my genius blind:--
He must for ever weep if he delay!

CHARL...

Lightly the shadows
Play through the trees,
Green are the meadows,
Soft is the breeze, -
June's early roses,
Pensive and sweet,
Droop where reposes
Lost Marguerite!

Meeting thee never
In the green bowers, -
Missing thee ever
'Mid the fresh flowers, -
Till the long hours die -
Hours once so fleet -
Hopelessly wait I,
Lost Marguerite!

Day has grown weary
In the blue sky,
Summer is dreary,
Melodies die;
Lowly the willow
Droopeth to meet
And kiss thy pillow,
Lost Marguerite!

Flower the fairest
Of sweet summer time,
Rosebud the rarest
Plucked ere its prime,
Mine to weep ever
Where the wares beat,
Meeting thee never,
Lost Marguerite!

    Orphaned, I cry to thee:
    Sweet sleep!    O kneel and be
    A mother unto me!
        Calm thou my childish fears:
    Fold - fold mine eyelids to, all tenderly,
    And dry my tears.

    Come, Sleep, all drowsy-eyed
    And faint with languor, - slide
    Thy dim face down beside
        Mine own, and let me rest
    And nestle in thy heart, and there abide,
    A favored guest.

    Good night to every care,
    And shadow of despair!
    Good night to all things where
        Within is no delight! -
    Sleep opens her dark arms, and, swooning there,
    I sob: Good night - good night!

Due gran nemiche insieme erano aggiunte.

THE UNION OF BEAUTY AND VIRTUE IS DISSOLVED BY HER DEATH.


    Two mortal foes in one fair breast combined,
Beauty and Virtue, in such peace allied
That ne'er rebellion ruffled that pure mind,
But in rare union dwelt they side by side;
By Death they now are shatter'd and disjoin'd;
One is in heaven, its glory and its pride,
One under earth, her brilliant eyes now blind,
Whence stings of love once issued far and wide.
That winning air, that rare discourse and meek,
Surely from heaven inspired, that gentle glance
Which wounded my poor heart, and wins it still,
Are gone; if I am slow her road to seek,
I hope her fair and graceful name perchance
To consecrate with this worn weary quill.

MACGREG...

Methought last night I saw thee lowly laid,
    Thy pallid cheek yet paler, on the bier;
And scattered round thee many a lovely braid
    Of flowers, the brightest of the closing year;
Whilst on thy lips the placid smile that played,
    Proved thy soul's exit to a happier sphere,
In silent eloquence reproaching those
Who watched in agony thy last repose.

A pensive, wandering, melancholy light
    The moon's pale radiance on thy features cast,
Which, through the awful stillness of the night,
    Gleamed like some lovely vision of the past,
Recalling hopes once beautiful and bright,
    Now, like that struggling beam, receding fast,
Which o'er the scene a softening glory shed,
And kissed the brow of the unconscious dead.

Yes--it was thou!--and we we...

'Wanted Kind Person to take charge of baby Boy (or Girl),' etc. - Any newspaper, any day.
'Early this morning the body of an infant was found on a doorstep in -- Street,' etc. - Any newspaper, every other day.


Unto the Person kind there came
A young girl bearing her fruit of shame:
She fell and it had to pay the price
Innocent Lamb of Sacrifice!

Lovingly then the Person smiled,
Gazing upon the face of the child;
Smiled like an ogress - 'Don't despond!
I am of children all too fond.'

Then said the mother, speaking low,
Kissing the babe she had born in woe:
'Treat him tenderly-nurse him well.'
Hotly the tears on the baby fell.

Taking the mother's coin with a leer
Ogress remarked: 'Don't cry, my dear,
Motherly persons to me ar...

HUSBAND.
The boy's my very image! See!
Even the scars my small-pox left me!

WIFE.
I can believe it easily
They once of all my senses reft me.

Shepherd of Israel! o'er Thy fold
How sweet Thy guardian care,
To them invisible indeed,
Yet present everywhere.

Thy crook still points to "pastures green,"
When rugged paths they see,
Beside "still waters" bids them rest,
And cast their care on Thee.

The "stranger's voice" thou, Lord, canst teach
Their watchful ears to know,
And make their "peace," their heavenly peace,
Like boundless waters flow.

When round this thorny world we stray
And find no place of rest,
Then come like "doves unto the ark,"
Faint, wearied, and oppressed,

Thy gentle hand is soon put forth
Each wanderer to receive;
Thou bindest up the broken heart,
And bidd'st the sinner live.

Why should we fear the storms of time?
Thy word their for...

In the village churchyard she lies,
Dust is in her beautiful eyes,
    No more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs;
At her feet and at her head
Lies a slave to attend the dead,
    But their dust is white as hers.

Was she a lady of high degree,
So much in love with the vanity
    And foolish pomp of this world of ours?
Or was it Christian charity,
And lowliness and humility,
    The richest and rarest of all dowers?

Who shall tell us?    No one speaks;
No color shoots into those cheeks,
    Either of anger or of pride,
At the rude question we have asked;
Nor will the mystery be unmasked
    By those who are sleeping at her side.

Hereafter?--And do you think to look
On the terrible pages of that Book
    To find her failings...

Dear, why should you command me to my rest,
When now the night doth summon all to sleep?
Methinks this time becometh lovers best;
Night was ordained together friends to keep.
    How happy are all other living things,
Which though the day disjoin by several flight,
The quiet evening yet together brings,
And each returns unto his love at night!
    O thou that art so courteous else to all,
Why shouldst thou, Night, abuse me only thus,
That every creature to his kind dost call,
And yet 'tis thou dost only sever us?
    Well could I wish it would be ever day,
    If when night comes, you bid me go away.

Vy yu mak my heart to yump,
Yennie dear?
Ay ban yust a fulish chump,
Yennie dear.
Yu ban sveet lak summer rose,
Lak a qveen from head to toes.
Ay ant fit for you, ay s'pose,
Yennie dear.

Yu ban gude the whole day long,
Yennie dear;
Yu ant never du no wrong,
Yennie dear.
Ay ban tuff old lumberyack,
Taking drenk yust ven ay lak,
Getting slugged and slugging back,
Yennie dear.

But ven ay ban tenk of yu,
Yennie dear,
Ay ban all made over new,
Yennie dear,
Ef ay have yu at my side,
Ef yu ban my little bride,
Ay skol let dese fallers slide,
Yennie dear.

Oh, ay need yu in my life,
Yennie dear;
Ef ay have an anyel vife,
Yennie dear,
Maybe ay can learn to be
Part lak anyel, tu, yu see;

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour’d ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil,
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn’d fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell:
Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

He lay within a warm, soft world
Of motion. Colors bloomed and fled,
Maroon and turquoise, saffron, red,
Wave upon wave that broke and whirled
To vanish in the grey-green gloom,
Perspectiveless and shadowy.
A bulging world that had no walls,
A flowing world, most like the sea,
Compassing all infinity
Within a shapeless, ebbing room,
An endless tide that swells and falls...
He slept and woke and slept again.
As a veil drops Time dropped away;
Space grew a toy for children's play,
Sleep bolted fast the gates of Sense --
He lay in naked impotence;
Like a drenched moth that creeps and crawls
Heavily up brown, light-baked walls,
To fall in wreck, her task undone,
Yet somehow striving toward the sun.
So, as he slept, his hands clenched tighter,

My faith is rooted in no written creed;
And there are those who call me heretic;
Yet year on year, though I be well or sick
Or opulent, or in the slough of need,
If, light of foot, fair Life trips by me pleasuring,
Or, by the rule of pain, old Time stands measuring
The dull, drab moments - still ascends my cry:
'God reigns on high!
He doeth all things well!'

Not much I prize, or one, or any brand
Of theologic lore; nor think too well
Of generally accepted heaven and hell.
But faith and knowledge build at Love's command
A beauteous heaven; a heaven of thought all clarified
Of hate and fear and doubt; a heaven of rarefied
And perfect trust; and from the heaven I cry:
'God reigns on high!
Whatever is, is best.'

My faith refuses to accept the...

We count the broken lyres that rest
Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,
But o'er their silent sister's breast
The wild-flowers who will stoop to number?
A few can touch the magic string,
And noisy Fame is proud to win them: -
Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!

Nay, grieve not for the dead alone
Whose song has told their hearts' sad story, -
Weep for the voiceless, who have known
The cross without the crown of glory
Not where Leucadian breezes sweep
O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow,
But where the glistening night-dews weep
On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow.

O hearts that break and give no sign
Save whitening lip and fading tresses,
Till Death pours out his longed-for wine
Slow-dropped fr...

Mente mia che presaga de' tuoi danni.

HE RECALLS WITH GRIEF THEIR LAST MEETING.


    My mind! prophetic of my coming fate,
Pensive and gloomy while yet joy was lent,
On the loved lineaments still fix'd, intent
To seek dark bodings, ere thy sorrow's date!
From her sweet acts, her words, her looks, her gait,
From her unwonted pity with sadness blent,
Thou might'st have said, hadst thou been prescient,
"I taste my last of bliss in this low state!"
My wretched soul! the poison, oh, how sweet!
That through my eyes instill'd the burning smart,
Gazing on hers, no more on earth to meet!
To them--my bosom's wealth! condemn'd to part
On a far journey--as to friends discreet,
All my fond thoughts I left, and lingering heart.

DACRE.

Tune - "The Country Lass."


I.

    In simmer, when the hay was mawn,
        And corn wav'd green in ilka field,
    While claver blooms white o'er the lea,
        And roses blaw in ilka bield;
    Blithe Bessie in the milking shiel,
        Says, I'll be wed, come o't what will;
    Out spak a dame in wrinkled eild
        O' guid advisement comes nae ill.

II.

    It's ye hae wooers mony ane,
        And, lassie, ye're but young ye ken;
    Then wait a wee, and cannie wale,
        A routhie butt, a routhie ben:
    There's Johnie o' the Buskie-glen,
        Fu' is his burn, fu' is his byre;
    Tak this frae me, my bonnie hen,
        It's plenty beets the luver's fire.

III.

    For Johnie ...

"Four winds blowing through the sky,
You have seen poor maidens die,
Tell me then what I shall do
That my lover may be true."
Said the wind from out the south,
"Lay no kiss upon his mouth,"
And the wind from out the west,
"Wound the heart within his breast,"
And the wind from out the east,
"Send him empty from the feast,"
And the wind from out the north,
"In the tempest thrust him forth;
When thou art more cruel than he,
Then will Love be kind to thee."