The weary, weary days gang by,
    The weary nichts they fa',
I mauna rest, I canna lie
    Since my ain bairn's awa'.

The soughing o' the springtide breeze
    Abune her heid blaws sweet,
There's nests amang the kirkyaird trees
    And gowans at her feet.

She gae'd awa' when winds were hie,
    When the deein' year was cauld,
An noo the young year seems to me
    A waur ane nor the auld.

And, bedded, 'twixt the nicht an' day,
    Yest're'en, I couldna bide
For thinkin', thinkin' as I lay
    O' the wean that lies outside.

O, mickle licht to me was gie'n
    To reach my bairn's abode,
But heaven micht blast a mither's een
    And her feet wad find the road.

The kirkyaird loan alang the brae
    Was choked ...

'Tis believed that this Harp, which I wake now for thee,
Was a Siren of old, who sung under the sea;
And who often, at eve, thro' the bright waters roved,
To meet, on the green shore, a youth whom she loved.

But she loved him in vain, for he left her to weep,
And in tears, all the night, her gold tresses to steep;
Till heaven looked with pity on true-love so warm,
And changed to this soft Harp the sea-maiden's form.

Still her bosom rose fair--still her cheeks smiled the same--
While her sea-beauties gracefully formed the light frame;
And her hair, as, let loose, o'er her white arm it fell,
Was changed to bright chords uttering melody's spell.

Hence it came, that this soft Harp so long hath been known
To mingle love's language with sorrow's sad tone;
Ti...

"Will you love me, sweet, when my hair is grey
And my cheeks shall have lost their hue?
When the charms of youth shall have passed away
Will your love as of old prove true?

"For the looks may change, and the heart may range
And the love be no longer fond;
Will you love with truth in the years of youth
And away to the years beyond?"

Oh, I love you, sweet, for your locks of brown
And the blush on your cheek that lies,
But I love you most for the kindly heart
That I see in your sweet blue eyes.

For the eyes are the signs of the soul within,
Of the heart that is leal and true,
And, my own sweetheart, I shall love you still,
Just as long as your eyes are blue.

For the locks may bleach, and the cheeks of peach
May be reft of their golden...

Be our fortunes as they may,
    Touched with loss or sorrow,
Saddest eyes that weep to-day
    May be glad to-morrow.

Yesterday the rain was here,
    And the winds were blowing -
Sky and earth and atmosphere
    Brimmed and overflowing.

But to-day the sun is out,
    And the drear November
We were then so vexed about
    Now we scarce remember.

Yesterday you lost a friend -
    Bless your heart and love it! -
For you scarce could comprehend
    All the aching of it; -

But I sing to you and say:
    Let the lost friend sorrow -
Here's another come to-day,
    Others may to-morrow.

I was always a lover of ladies' hands!
Or ever mine heart came here to tryst,
For the sake of your carved white hands' commands;
The tapering fingers, the dainty wrist;
The hands of a girl were what I kissed.

I remember an hand like a fleur-de-lys
When it slid from its silken sheath, her glove;
With its odours passing ambergris:
And that was the empty husk of a love.
Oh, how shall I kiss your hands enough?

They are pale with the pallor of ivories;
But they blush to the tips like a curled sea-shell:
What treasure, in kingly treasuries,
Of gold, and spice for the thurible,
Is sweet as her hands to hoard and tell?

I know not the way from your finger-tips,
Nor how I shall gain the higher lands,
The citadel of your sacred lips:
I ...

Along the aisle where prayer was made,
A woman, all in black arrayed,
Close-veiled, between the kneeling host,
With gliding motion of a ghost,
Passed to the desk, and laid thereon
A scroll which bore these words alone,
Pray for me!

Back from the place of worshipping
She glided like a guilty thing
The rustle of her draperies, stirred
By hurrying feet, alone was heard;
While, full of awe, the preacher read,
As out into the dark she sped:
"Pray for me!"

Back to the night from whence she came,
To unimagined grief or shame!
Across the threshold of that door
None knew the burden that she bore;
Alone she left the written scroll,
The legend of a troubled soul,--
Pray for me!

Glide on, poor ghost of woe or sin!
Thou leav'...

("Oh! vous aurez trop dit.")

[Bk. III. xiv., April, 1843.]


Ah, you said too often to your angel
There are other angels in the sky -
There, where nothing changes, nothing suffers,
Sweet it were to enter in on high.

To that dome on marvellous pilasters,
To that tent roofed o'er with colored bars,
That blue garden full of stars like lilies,
And of lilies beautiful as stars.

And you said it was a place most joyous,
All our poor imaginings above,
With the wingèd cherubim for playmates,
And the good God evermore to love.

Sweet it were to dwell there in all seasons,
Like a taper burning day and night,
Near to the child Jesus and the Virgin,
In that home so beautiful and bright.

But you should have told him, h...

Waiting in the woodland, watching for my sweet,
Thinking every leaf that stirs the coming of her feet,
Thinking every whisper the rustle of her gown,
How my heart goes up and up, and then goes down and down.

First it is a squirrel, then it is a dove,
Then a red fox feather-soft and footed like a dream;
All the woodland fools me, promising my love;
I think I hear her talking - 'tis but the running stream.

Vowelled talking water, mimicking her voice -
O how she promised she'd surely come to-day!
There she comes! she comes at last!    O heart of mine rejoice -
Nothing but a flight of birds winging on their way.

Lonely grows the afternoon, empty grows the world;
Day's bright banners in the west one by one are furled,
Sadly sinks the lingering sun that like...

Sweete, sleepe so arm'd with Beauties arrowes darting,
Sleepe in thy Beauty, Beauty in sleepe appeareth;
Sleepe lightning Beauty, Beauty sleepes, darknes cleereth,
Sleepes wonder Beauty, wonders to worlds imparting.
Sleep watching Beauty, Beauty waking, sleepe guarding
Beauty in sleepe, sleepe in Beauty charmed,
Sleepes aged coldnes with Beauties fire warmed,
Sleepe with delight, Beauty with loue rewarding.
Sleepe and Beauty, with equall forces stryuing,
Beauty her strength vnto sleepes weaknes lending,
Sleepe with Beauty, Beauty with sleepe contending,
Yet others force the others force reuiuing,
    And others foe the others foe imbrace.
    Myne eyes beheld thys conflict in thy face.

Ma poi che 'l dolce riso umile e piano.

HER RETURN GLADDENS THE EARTH AND CALMS THE SKY.


    But when her sweet smile, modest and benign,
No longer hides from us its beauties rare,
At the spent forge his stout and sinewy arms
Plieth that old Sicilian smith in vain,
For from the hands of Jove his bolts are taken
Temper'd in Ætna to extremest proof;
And his cold sister by degrees grows calm
And genial in Apollo's kindling beams.
Moves from the rosy west a summer breath,
Which safe and easy wafts the seaward bark,
And wakes the sweet flowers in each grassy mead.
Malignant stars on every side depart,
Dispersed before that bright enchanting face,
For which already many tears are shed.

MACGREGOR.

Good people all, with one accord,
Lament for Madam BLAIZE,
Who never wanted a good word
'From those who spoke her praise'.

The needy seldom pass'd her door,
And always found her kind;
She freely lent to all the poor,
'Who left a pledge behind'.

She strove the neighbourhood to please,
With manners wond'rous winning,
And never follow'd wicked ways,
'Unless when she was sinning'.

At church, in silks and satins new,
With hoop of monstrous size,
She never slumber'd in her pew,
'But when she shut her eyes'.

Her love was sought, I do aver,
By twenty beaux and more;
The king himself has follow'd her,
'When she has walk'd before'.

But now her wealth and finery fled,
Her hangers-on cut short all;
The doctors fo...

There was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.
It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.
Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
I also bear a bell-branch full of ease.
I tore it from green boughs winds tore and tossed
Until the sap of summer had grown weary!
I tore it from the barren boughs of Eire,
That country where a man can be so crossed;
Can be so battered, badgered and destroyed
That he's a lo...

Her heart is still and leaps no more
With holy passion when the breeze,
Her whilom playmate, as before,
Comes with the language of the bees,
Sad songs her mountain cedars sing,
And water-music murmuring.

Her calm white feet, erst fleet and fast
As Daphne's when a god pursued,
No more will dance like sunlight past
The gold-green vistas of the wood,
Where every quailing floweret
Smiled into life where they were set.

Hers were the limbs of living light,
And breasts of snow; as virginal
As mountain drifts; and throat as white
As foam of mountain waterfall;
And hyacinthine curls, that streamed
Like crag-born mists, and gloomed and gleamed.

Her presence breathed such scents as haunt
Moist, mountain dells and solitudes;
Aromas wi...

I am a river flowing from God's sea
Through devious ways. He mapped my course for me;
I cannot change it; mine alone the toil
To keep the waters free from grime and soil.
The winding river ends where it began;
And when my life has compassed its brief span
I must return to that mysterious source.
So let me gather daily on my course
The perfume from the blossoms as I pass,
Balm from the pines, and healing from the grass,
And carry down my current as I go
Not common stones but precious gems to show;
And tears (the holy water from sad eyes)
Back to God's sea, from which all rivers rise
Let me convey, not blood from wounded hearts,
Nor poison which the upas tree imparts.
When over flowery vales I leap with joy,
Let me not devastate them, nor destroy,
But ...

Oh that Pieria's spring1 would thro' my breast
Pour its inspiring influence, and rush
No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood!
That, for my venerable Father's sake
All meaner themes renounced, my Muse, on wings
Of Duty borne, might reach a loftier strain.
For thee, my Father! howsoe'er it please,
She frames this slender work, nor know I aught,
That may thy gifts more suitably requite;
Though to requite them suitably would ask
Returns much nobler, and surpassing far
The meagre stores of verbal gratitude.
But, such as I possess, I send thee all.
This page presents thee in their full amount
With thy son's treasures, and the sum is nought;
Naught, save the riches that from airy dreams
In secret grottos and in laurel bow'rs,
I have, by golden...

Here's to Music,
Joy of joys!
One man's music's
Another man's noise.

Bear and forbear, I counsel thee,
Forgive and be forgiven,
For Charity is the golden key
That opens the gate of heaven.

    "'Tis but a common thing," one coldly said,
        "Nay, call it not a flower - this little weed,
        If plucking it, I kill it, root and seed -
    Better the world were if it lay there dead."

    "Ah - rather let it live!" a second cried,
        "Weed it may be, and yet it has its use,
        Here in its healing essence its excuse
    For blooming lies, and here its only pride."

    "Destroy it not!" another pled, "Behold
        This tapering leaf - this soft and tender green,
        Upon my canvas it shall bloom serene -
    This tiny chalice-fleck of living gold."

    Then one bent over it, "Ah, flowret bright!
        For only flowers in this garden grow, -
        His earth, His sunshine made thee, o'er thee blow
    His winds, ...