To some the heavenly Father good
Has given raiment rich and fine,
And tables spread with dainty food,
And jewels rare that brightly shine.

To some He's given gold that buys
Immunity from petty care,
Freedom and leisure and the prize
Of pleasing books and pictures fair.

To some He's given wide domains
And high estate and tranquil ease,
And homes where all refinement reigns
And everything combines to please.

To some He's given minds to know
The what and how, the where and when;
To some, a genius that can throw
A light upon the hearts of men.

To some He's given fortunes free
From sorrows and replete with joys;
To some, a thousand friends; to me
He's given my two little boys.

Written on SUNDAY MORNING.

    Go thou and seek the House of Prayer!
    I to the Woodlands wend, and there
In lovely Nature see the GOD OF LOVE.
    The swelling organ's peal
    Wakes not my soul to zeal,
Like the wild music of the wind-swept grove.
The gorgeous altar and the mystic vest
Rouse not such ardor in my breast,
    As where the noon-tide beam
    Flash'd from the broken stream,
Quick vibrates on the dazzled sight;
    Or where the cloud-suspended rain
    Sweeps in shadows o'er the plain;
Or when reclining on the clift's huge height
I mark the billows burst in silver light.

    Go thou and seek the House of Prayer!
    I to the Woodlands shall repair,
    Feed with all Natures charms mine eyes,
    And hear all Natures m...

A ship with shields before the sun,
Six maidens round the mast,
A red-gold crown on every one,
A green gown on the last.

The fluttering green banners there
Are wrought with ladies' heads most fair,
And a portraiture of Guenevere
The middle of each sail doth bear.

A ship which sails before the wind,
And round the helm six knights,
Their heaumes are on, whereby, half blind,
They pass by many sights.

The tatter'd scarlet banners there,
Right soon will leave the spear-heads bare.
Those six knights sorrowfully bear,
In all their heaumes some yellow hair.

All my past life is mine no more,
The flying hours are gone,
Like transitory dreams giv'n o'er,
Whose images are kept in store
By memory alone.

The time that is to come is not;
How can it then be mine?
The present moment's all my lot;
And that, as fast as it is got,
Phyllis, is only thine.

Then talk not of inconstancy,
False hearts, and broken vows;
If I, by miracle, can be
This live-long minute true to thee,
'Tis all that Heav'n allows.

We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire;
For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return
If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,
As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn.

Lights of infinite pity star the grey dusk of our days:
Surely here is soul: with it we have eternal breath:
In the fire of love we live, or pass by many ways,
By unnumbered ways of dream to death.

On the grey rock of Cashel the mind’s eye
Has called up the cold spirits that are born
When the old moon is vanished from the sky
And the new still hides her horn.

Under blank eyes and fingers never still
The particular is pounded till it is man,
When had I my own will?
Oh, not since life began.

Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbent
By these wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood,
Themselves obedient,
Knowing not evil and good;

Obedient to some hidden magical breath.
They do not even feel, so abstract are they,
So dead beyond our death,
Triumph that we obey.

II

On the grey rock of Cashel I suddenly saw
A Sphinx with woman breast and lion paw,
A Buddha, hand at rest,
Hand lifted up that blest;

Out, traytor Absence, dar'st thou counsell me
From my deare captainesse to run away,
Because in braue array heere marcheth she,
That, to win mee, oft shewes a present pay?
Is faith so weake? or is such force in thee?
When sun is hid, can starres such beames display?
Cannot heau'ns food, once felt, keepe stomakes free
From base desire on earthly cates to pray?
Tush, Absence; while thy mistes eclipse that light,
My orphan sense flies to the inward sight,
Where memory sets forth the beames of loue;
That, where before hart lou'd and eyes did see,
In hart both sight and loue now coupled be:
Vnited pow'rs make each the stronger proue.

The sextant of the meetinouse, which sweeps
And dusts, or is supposed too! and makes fiers,
And lites the gas and sometimes leaves a screw loose,
in which case it smells orful - worse than lampile;
And wrings the Bel and toles it when men dyes
to the grief of survivin pardners, and sweeps pathes;
And for the servases gits $100 per annum,
Which them that thinks deer, let em try it;
Getting up be foar star-lite in all weathers and
Kindlin-fires when the wether it is cold
As zero, and like as not green wood for kindlers;
I wouldn't be hired to do it for no some -
But o sextant! there are 1 kermoddity
Which's more than gold, wich doant cost nothin,
Worth more than anything exsep the Sole of Man.
i mean pewer Are, sextent, i mean pewer are!
O it is plenty out o dor...

The point is turned; the twilight shadow fills
The wheeling stream, the soft receding shore,
And on our ears from deep among the hills
Breaks now the rapid's sudden quickening roar.
Ah yet the same, or have they changed their face,
The fair green fields, and can it still be seen,
The white log cottage near the mountain's base,
So bright and quiet, so home-like and serene?
Ah, well I question, for as five years go,
How many blessings fall, and how much woe.

Aye there they are, nor have they changed their cheer,
The fields, the hut, the leafy mountain brows;
Across the lonely dusk again I hear
The loitering bells, the lowing of the cows,
The bleat of many sheep, the stilly rush
Of the low whispering river, and through all,
Soft human tongues that break the...

Under a spreading chestnut-tree
    The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
    With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
    Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
    His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
    He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
    For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
    You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
    With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
    When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
    Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
    An...

    Suppose it is nothing but the hive:
    That there are drones and workers
    And queens, and nothing but storing honey -
    (Material things as well as culture and wisdom) -
    For the next generation, this generation never living,
    Except as it swarms in the sun-light of youth,
    Strengthening its wings on what has been gathered,
    And tasting, on the way to the hive
    From the clover field, the delicate spoil.
    Suppose all this, and suppose the truth:
    That the nature of man is greater
    Than nature's need in the hive;
    And you must bear the burden of life,
    As well as the urge from your spirit's excess -
    Well, I say to live it out like a god
    Sure of immortal life, though you are in doubt,
    Is the way to live it.

SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH

I shiver, Spirit fierce and bold,
At thought of what I now behold:
As vapours breathed from dungeons cold,
Strike pleasure dead,
So sadness comes from out the mould
Where Burns is laid.

And have I then thy bones so near,
And thou forbidden to appear?
As if it were thyself that's here
I shrink with pain;
And both my wishes and my fear
Alike are vain.

Off weight, nor press on weight! away
Dark thoughts! they came, but not to stay;
With chastened feelings would I pay
The tribute due
To him, and aught that hides his clay
From mortal view.

Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth
He sang, his genius "glinted" forth,
Rose like a star that touching earth,
For so it seems,
Doth glori...

I would that you should know,
Dear mother, that I love you -- love you so!
That I remember other days and years;
Remember childish joys and childish fears.
And this, because my baby's little hand
Opened my own heart's door and made me understand.

I wonder how you could
Be always kind and good!
So quick to hear; to tend
My smallest ills; to lend
Such sympathising ears
Swifter than ancient seer's.
I never yet knew hands so soft and kind,
Nor any cheek so smooth, nor any mind
So full of tender thoughts. . . . Dear mother, now
I think that I can guess a little how
You must have looked for some response, some sign,
That all my tiresome wayward heart was thine.

And sure it was! You were my first dear love!
You who first pointed me to God a...

Our King went forth on pilgrimage
His prayers and vows to pay
To them that saved our heritage
And cast their own away.

And there was little show of pride,
Or prows of belted steel,
For the clean-swept oceans every side
Lay free to every keel.

And the first land he found, it was shoal and banky ground,
Where the broader seas begin,
And a pale tide grieving at the broken harbour-mouth
Where they worked the death-ships in.

And there was neither gull on the wing,
Nor wave that could not tell
Of the bodies that were buckled in the life-buoy's ring
That slid from swell to swell.

All that they had they gave, they gave; and they shall not return,
For these are those that have no grave where any heart may mourn.

And the next land...

With arms and legs at work and gentle stroke
That urges switching tail nor mends his pace,
On an old ribbed and weather beaten horse,
The farmer goes jogtrotting to the fair.
Both keep their pace that nothing can provoke
Followed by brindled dog that snuffs the ground
With urging bark and hurries at his heels.
His hat slouched down, and great coat buttoned close
Bellied like hooped keg, and chuffy face
Red as the morning sun, he takes his round
And talks of stock: and when his jobs are done
And Dobbin's hay is eaten from the rack,
He drinks success to corn in language hoarse,
And claps old Dobbin's hide, and potters back.

'Tis spring! the boats bound to the sea;
The breezes, loitering kindly over
The fields, again bring herds and men
The grateful cheer of honeyed clover.

Now Venus hither leads her train,
The Nymphs and Graces join in orgies,
The moon is bright and by her light
Old Vulcan kindles up his forges.

Bind myrtle now about your brow,
And weave fair flowers in maiden tresses--
Appease God Pan, who, kind to man,
Our fleeting life with affluence blesses.

But let the changing seasons mind us
That Death's the certain doom of mortals--
Grim Death who waits at humble gat
And likewise stalks through kingly portals.

Soon, Sestius, shall Plutonian shades
Enfold you with their hideous seemings--
Then love and mirth and joys of earth
Shall fa...

I hold it the duty of one who is gifted,
    And specially dowered in all men's sight,
To know no rest till his life is lifted
    Fully up to his great gifts' height.

He must mold the man into rare completeness,
    For gems are set only in gold refined.
He must fashion his thoughts into perfect sweetness,
    And cast out folly and pride from his mind.

For he who drinks from a god's gold fountain
    Of art or music or rhythmic song
Must sift from his soul the chaff of malice,
    And weed from his heart the roots of wrong.

Great gifts should be worn, like a crown befitting!
    And not like gems in a beggar's hands.
And the toil must be constant and unremitting
    Which lifts up the king to the crown's demands.

Scenes of love and days of pleasure,
I must leave them all, lassie.
Scenes of love and hours of leisure,
All are gone for aye, lassie.
No more thy velvet-bordered dress
My fond and longing een shall bless,
Thou lily in the wilderness;
And who shall love thee then, lassie?
Long I've watched thy look so tender,
Often clasped thy waist so slender:
Heaven, in thine own love defend her,
God protect my own lassie.

By all the faith I've shown afore thee,
I'll swear by more than that, lassie:
By heaven and earth I'll still adore thee,
Though we should part for aye, lassie!
By thy infant years so loving,
By thy woman's love so moving,
That white breast thy goodness proving,
I'm thine for aye, through all, lassie!
By the sun that shines for eve...