Wherefore drag me to yon glittering eddy,

With resistless might?
Was I, then, not truly blest already

In the silent night?

In my secret chamber refuge taking,

'Neath the moon's soft ray,
And her awful light around me breaking,

Musing there I lay.

And I dream'd of hours with joy o'erflowing,

Golden, truly blest,
While thine image so beloved was glowing

Deep within my breast.

Now to the card-table hast thou bound me,

'Midst the torches glare?
Whilst unhappy faces are around me,

Dost thou hold me there?

Spring-flow'rs are to me more rapture-giving,

Now conceal'd from view;
Where thou, angel, art, is Nature living,

Love and kindness too.

Tune - "Laggan Burn."


I.

    Here's to thy health, my bonnie lass,
        Gude night, and joy be wi' thee;
    I'll come na mair to thy bower-door,
        To tell thee that I lo'e thee.
    O dinna think, my pretty pink,
        But I can live without thee:
    I vow and swear I dinna care
        How lang ye look about ye.

II.

    Thou'rt ay sae free informing me
        Thou hast na mind to marry;
    I'll be as free informing thee
        Nae time hae I to tarry.
    I ken thy friends try ilka means,
        Frae wedlock to delay thee;
    Depending on some higher chance -
        But fortune may betray thee.

III.

    I ken they scorn my low estate,
        But that does never griev...

Sì come nella penna.


As pen and ink alike serve him who sings
        In high or low or intermediate style;
        As the same stone hath shapes both rich and vile
        To match the fancies that each master brings;
So, my loved lord, within thy bosom springs
        Pride mixed with meekness and kind thoughts that smile:
        Whence I draw nought, my sad self to beguile,
        But what my face shows--dark imaginings.
He who for seed sows sorrow, tears, and sighs,
        (The dews that fall from heaven, though pure and clear,
        From different germs take divers qualities)
Must needs reap grief and garner weeping eyes;
        And he who looks on beauty with sad cheer,
        Gains doubtful hope and certain miseries.

I love this age of energy and force,
    Expectantly I greet each pregnant hour;
Emerging from the all-creative source,
    Supreme with promise, imminent with power.
The strident whistle and the clanging bell,
    The noise of gongs, the rush of motored things
Are but the prophet voices which foretell
    A time when thought may use unfettered wings.

Too long the drudgery of earth has been
    A barrier 'twixt man and his own mind.
Remove the stone, and lo! the Christ within;
    For He is there, and who so seeks shall find.
The Great Inventor is the Modern Priest.
    He paves the pathway to a higher goal.
Once from the grind of endless toil released
    Man will explore the kingdom of his soul.

And all this restless rush, this strain and strife,...

This world's made up ov leet an shade,
But some things strange aw mark;
One class live all on th' sunny side,
Wol others dwell i'th' dark.
Wor it intended some should grooap,
Battlin with th' world o' care,
Wol others full ov joy an hooap
Have happiness to spare?

It may be soa, - aw'll net contend,
Opinions should be free; -
Aw'm nobbut spaikin as a friend, -
But it seems that way to me.

Should one class wear ther lives away,
To mak another great;
Wol all their share will hardly pay,
For grub enuff to ait?
An is it reight at some should dress
I' clooas bedeckt wi' gold,
Wol others havn't rags enuff,
To keep ther limbs throo th' cold?

It may be soa, - aw'll net contend, &c,

When gazin at th' fine palaces,

Prince, show me the quickest way and best
To gain the subject of my moan;
We've neither spinsters nor relics out West--
These do I love, and these alone.

Plain men have fitful moods and so have Kings,
For Kings are only men, and often made
Of clay as common as e'er stained a spade.
But when the great are moody, then, the strings
Of gilded harps are smitten, and their strains
Are soft and soothing as the Summer rains.

And Saul was taken by an evil mood,
He felt within himself his spirit faint:
In vain he tossed upon his couch and wooed
Refreshing slumbers. Sleep knows no constraint!
Then David came: his physic and advice
All in a harp, and cleared the mind of Saul -
And Saul thereafter launched his javelin twice
To nail the harper to the palace wall!

A Lyrical Idyl

THALASSIUS
Pan!

PAN
O sea-stray, seed of Apollo,
What word wouldst thou have with me?
My ways thou wast fain to follow
Or ever the years hailed thee
Man.
Now
If August brood on the valleys,
If satyrs laugh on the lawns,
What part in the wildwood alleys
Hast thou with the fleet-foot fauns
Thou?
See!
Thy feet are a man's not cloven
Like these, not light as a boy's:
The tresses and tendrils inwoven
That lure us, the lure of them cloys
Thee.
Us
The joy of the wild woods never
Leaves free of the thirst it slakes:
The wild love throbs in us ever
That burns in the dense hot brakes
Thus.
Life,
Eternal, passionate, awless,
Insatiable, mutable, dear,
Makes all men's l...

My lute, be as thou wert when thou didst grow
With thy green mother in some shady grove,
When immelodious winds but made thee move,
And birds their ramage did on thee bestow.
Since that dear Voice which did thy sounds approve,
Which wont in such harmonious strains to flow,
Is reft from Earth to tune those spheres above,
What art thou but a harbinger of woe?
Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more,
But orphans' wailings to the fainting ear;
Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear;
For which be silent as in woods before:
Or if that any hand to touch thee deign,
Like widowed turtle, still her loss complain.

Why do not all fresh maids appear
To work love's sampler only here,
Where spring-time smiles throughout the year?
Are not here rosebuds, pinks, all flowers
Nature begets by th' sun and showers,
Met in one hearse-cloth to o'erspread
The body of the under-dead?
Phil, the late dead, the late dead dear,
O! may no eye distil a tear
For you once lost, who weep not here!
Had Lesbia, too-too kind, but known
This sparrow, she had scorn'd her own:
And for this dead which under lies
Wept out her heart, as well as eyes.
But, endless peace, sit here and keep
My Phil the time he has to sleep;
And thousand virgins come and weep
To make these flowery carpets show
Fresh as their blood, and ever grow,
Till passengers shall spend their doom:
Not Virgil's gnat...

                        Ah me!
                    Am I the swain
            That late from sorrow free
        Did all the cares on earth disdain?
    And still untouched, as at some safer games,
Played with the burning coals of love, and beauty's flames?
Was't I could dive, and sound each passion's secret depth at will?
And from those huge o'erwhelmings rise, by help of reason still?
    And am I now, O heavens! for trying this in vain,
        So sunk that I shall never rise again?
        Then let despair set sorrow's string,
            For strains that doleful be;
                    And I will sing,
                        Ah me!

                        But why,
                    O fatal time,
                Dost thou constrain that I
   ...

I might strive as well to melt to softness the soulless breast
Of some fair and saintly image, carven out of stone,
With my smile, as to stir you heart from its icy rest,
Or win a tender glance from your royal eyes, Ione;
But your sad smile lures me on, as toward some fatal rock
Is the fond wave drawn, but to break with passionate moan.
Break! to be spurned from its cold feet with a stony shock,
As you would spurn my suppliant heart from your feet, Ione.

Ione, there is a grave in the churchyard under the hill,
The villagers shun like the unblest haunt of a ghost,
Dropped there out of a dark spring night, I remember still,
For a foreign ship had anchored that night on the coast;
On the gray stone tablet is written this one word "Rest."
Did he who sleeps underneath seek ...

O bella man, che mi distringi 'l core.

THE STOLEN GLOVE.


    O beauteous hand! that dost my heart subdue,
And in a little space my life confine;
Hand where their skill and utmost efforts join
Nature and Heaven, their plastic powers to show!
Sweet fingers, seeming pearls of orient hue,
To my wounds only cruel, fingers fine!
Love, who towards me kindness doth design,
For once permits ye naked to our view.
Thou glove most dear, most elegant and white,
Encasing ivory tinted with the rose;
More precious covering ne'er met mortal sight.
Would I such portion of thy veil had gain'd!
O fleeting gifts which fortune's hand bestows!
'Tis justice to restore what theft alone obtain'd.

NOTT.


    O beauteous hand! which robb'st ...

    Oh, let me plead with thee to have a nook,
    A garden nook, not far from thy domain,
    That there, with harp, and voice, and poet-book,
    I may be true to thee, and, passion-fain,
    Rehearse the songs of nature once again: -
    The songs of Cynthia wandering by the brook
    To soothe the raptures of a lover's pain,
    And those of Phyllis with her shepherd's crook!
    I die to serve thee, and for this alone, -
    To be thy bard-elect, from day to day, -
    I would forego the right to fill a throne.
    I would consent to be the famine-prey
    Of some fierce pard, if ere the night were flown
    I could subdue thy spirit to my sway.

Dodici donne onestamente lasse.

HAPPY WHO STEERED THE BOAT, OR DROVE THE CAR, WHEREIN SHE SAT AND SANG.


    Twelve ladies, their rare toil who lightly bore,
Rather twelve stars encircling a bright sun,
I saw, gay-seated a small bark upon,
Whose like the waters never cleaved before:
Not such took Jason to the fleece of yore,
Whose fatal gold has ev'ry heart now won,
Nor such the shepherd boy's, by whom undone
Troy mourns, whose fame has pass'd the wide world o'er.
I saw them next on a triumphal car,
Where, known by her chaste cherub ways, aside
My Laura sate and to them sweetly sung.
Things not of earth to man such visions are!
Blest Tiphys! blest Automedon! to guide
The bark, or car of band so bright and young.

MACGREGOR.

Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask, Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foil'd searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure,
Didst tread on earth unguess'd at. Better so!

All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.

The teacher ended, and his high discourse
Concluding, earnest in my looks inquir'd
If I appear'd content; and I, whom still
Unsated thirst to hear him urg'd, was mute,
Mute outwardly, yet inwardly I said:
"Perchance my too much questioning offends"
But he, true father, mark'd the secret wish
By diffidence restrain'd, and speaking, gave
Me boldness thus to speak: 'Master, my Sight
Gathers so lively virtue from thy beams,
That all, thy words convey, distinct is seen.
Wherefore I pray thee, father, whom this heart
Holds dearest! thou wouldst deign by proof t' unfold
That love, from which as from their source thou bring'st
All good deeds and their opposite.'" He then:
"To what I now disclose be thy clear ken
Directed, and thou plainly shalt behold
How much th...

I've watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless! not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;
My trees they are, my Sister's flowers;
Here rest your wings when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!
Come often to us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us on the bough!
We'll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days, when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.