The faery forest glimmered
Beneath an ivory moon,
The silver grasses shimmered
Against a faery tune.

Beneath the silken silence
The crystal branches slept,
And dreaming thro’ the dew-fall
The cold white blossoms wept.

I want more lives in which to love
    This world so full of beauty,
I want more days to use the ways
    I know of doing duty;
I ask no greater joy than this
    (So much I am life's lover),
When I reach age to turn the page
    And read the story over.
    (O love, stay near!)

O rapturous promise of the Spring!
    O June fulfilling after!
If Autumns sigh, when Summers die,
    'Tis drowned in Winter's laughter.
O maiden dawns, O wifely noons,
    O siren sweet, sweet nights,
I'd want no heaven could earth be given
    Again with its delights
    (If love stayed near).

There are such glories for the eye,
    Such pleasures for the ear,
The senses reel with all they feel
    And see and taste and hear;
There are such ...

When close by my bed the Death Angel shall stand
    And deliver his summons, at last;
When my brow feels the chill of his cold, clammy hand,
    And mortality's struggles are past;
When my pain throbbing temples, with death sweat are cold,
    And the spirit its strivings shall cease,
As with muscular shrug, it relaxes its hold,
    And the suffering clay is at peace;

E'er my spirit shall plunge through the shadowy vale,
    My lips shall this wish have expressed,
That all which remains of mortality frail,
    In some fair enclosure may rest;
Where disorganized, this pale form shall sustain
    The fragrant and beautiful flowers,
And reproduce beauty, again and again,
    Through nature's grand organic powers.

Come, heap the fagots! Ere we go
Again the cheerful hearth shall glow;
We 'll have another blaze, my boys!
When clouds are black and snows are white,
Then Christmas logs lend ruddy light
They stole from summer days, my boys,
They stole from summer days.

And let the Loving-Cup go round,
The Cup with blessed memories crowned,
That flows whene'er we meet, my boys;
No draught will hold a drop of sin
If love is only well stirred in
To keep it sound and sweet, my boys,
To keep it sound and sweet.

Give me, to pin upon my breast,
The blossoms twain I love the best,
A rosebud and a pink, my boys;
Their leaves shall nestle next my heart,
Their perfumed breath shall own its part
In every health we drink, my boys,
In every health we drink.<...

I hear a clear voice calling, calling,
Calling out of the night,
O, you who live in the Light of Life,
        Bring us the Light!

We are bound in the chains of darkness,
Our eyes received no sight,
O, you who have never been bond or blind,
        Bring us the Light!

We live amid turmoil and horror,
Where might is the only right,
O, you to whom life is liberty,
        Bring us the Light!

We stand in the ashes of ruins,
We are ready to fight the fight,
O, you whose feet are firm on the Rock,
        Bring us the Light!

You cannot--you shall not forget us,
Out here in the darkest night,
We are drowning men, we are dying men,
        Bring, O, bring us the Light!

The lords of life, the lords of life,--
I saw them pass
In their own guise,
Like and unlike,
Portly and grim,--
Use and Surprise,
Surface and Dream,
Succession swift and spectral Wrong,
Temperament without a tongue,
And the inventor of the game
Omnipresent without name;--
Some to see, some to be guessed,
They marched from east to west:
Little man, least of all,
Among the legs of his guardians tall,
Walked about with puzzled look.
Him by the hand dear Nature took,
Dearest Nature, strong and kind,
Whispered, 'Darling, never mind!
To-morrow they will wear another face,
The founder thou; these are thy race!'

Dante, sole standing on the heavenward height,
Beheld and heard one saying, "Behold me well:
I am, I am Beatrice." Heaven and hell
Kept silence, and the illimitable light
Of all the stars was darkness in his sight
Whose eyes beheld her eyes again, and fell
Shame-stricken. Since her soul took flight to dwell
In heaven, six hundred years have taken flight.
And now that heavenliest part of earth whereon
Shines yet their shadow as once their presence shone
To her bears witness for his sake, as he
For hers bare witness when her face was gone:
No slave, no hospice now for grief, but free
From shore to mountain and from Alp to sea.

    Behold! the Tabernacle of God's Will
    This woman's form enshrineth.    What is this,
    More glorious than all our age-long bliss,
    Which shines within the shadow of her sill?
    How shall we lift this strangeness which doth fill
    Her human heart to breaking,--we who miss
    In our immortal joy, the enlight'ning kiss
    Of sorrow's bitter lips whence comforts thrill?
    How shall we sing to her of joys to come,
    To her who bears upon her breast the sum
    Of death's dread gloom and heaven's undying light?
    Lean close, ah, close, about her from above,--
    Behold upon the mildness of her love
    Enthroned the terrors of His Holy Might!

Ethel Allen Murphy

Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauty’s orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters and keeps warm her note.

Ask me no more where those stars ‘light
That downwards fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become as in their sphere.

Ask me no more if east or west
The Phoenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.

RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO HIS PATRONESS AND FRIEND, BY THE LITTLE, BROWN SINGER HIMSELF.


                    Merrily!
                    Merrily!
        Tschee! tschee! tschee!
What can the meaning of these things be?
Tiniest buds and leaflets green -
Who shall tell me what these things mean?
                    Merrily!
                    Merrily!
        Tschee! tschee! tschee!
Much I guess they were meant for me!

                    Tsu-ert!
                    Tsu-ert!
        Tschee! tschee! tschee!
So I shall eat them up you see
Somebody, somewhere, is kindly stirred
To think of me, a poor, brown bird! -
                    Merrily!
                    Merrily!
        Tschee! tschee! tschee!
Somebody, somewhere, ...

    But rarely seen since Nature's birth,
        The natives of the sky;
    Yet still one seraph's left on earth,
        For Jessy did not die.

R. B.

For ever stars are winging
    Their swift and endless race;
For ever suns are swinging
    Their mighty globes through space.
Since by his law required
To join God's spheres inspired,
The earth has never tired,
    But whirled and whirled and whirled.
For ever streams are flowing,
For ever seeds are growing,
Alway is Nature showing
    That Action rules the world.

And since by God requested
    To BE, the glorious light
Has never paused or rested,
    But travelled day and night.
Yet pigmy man, unseeing
The purpose of his being,
Demands escape and freeing
    From universal force.
But law is law for ever,
And like a mighty lever
It thrusts him tow'rd endeavour,
    And speeds him on his course.

WITH A PRESENT OF A PAPER-BOOK, FINELY BOUND, ON HIS BIRTH-DAY, NOV. 30, 1732.[1] BY JOHN, EARL OF ORRERY

To thee, dear Swift, these spotless leaves I send;
Small is the present, but sincere the friend.
Think not so poor a book below thy care;
Who knows the price that thou canst make it bear?
Tho' tawdry now, and, like Tyrilla's face,
The specious front shines out with borrow'd grace;
Tho' pasteboards, glitt'ring like a tinsell'd coat,
A rasa tabula within denote:
Yet, if a venal and corrupted age,
And modern vices should provoke thy rage;
If, warn'd once more by their impending fate,
A sinking country and an injur'd state,
Thy great assistance should again demand,
And call forth reason to defend the land;
Then shall we view these sheets with glad surp...

Let me move slowly through the street,
Filled with an ever-shifting train,
Amid the sound of steps that beat
The murmuring walks like autumn rain.

How fast the flitting figures come!
The mild, the fierce, the stony face;
Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.

They pass, to toil, to strife, to rest;
To halls in which the feast is spread;
To chambers where the funeral guest
In silence sits beside the dead.

And some to happy homes repair,
Where children, pressing cheek to cheek,
With mute caresses shall declare
The tenderness they cannot speak.

And some, who walk in calmness here,
Shall shudder as they reach the door
Where one who made their dwelling dear,
Its flower, its ligh...

    What we most need is men of worth,
    Men o' the forest mark,
    Of lofty height and mighty girth
    And green, unbroken bark.

    Not men whom circumstances
    Have stunted, wasted, sapped,
    Men fearful of fighting chances,
    Clinging to by-paths mapped.

    Holding honor and truth below
    Promotion, place and pelf;
    Weaklings that change as winds do blow,
    Lost in their love of self.

    Tricksters playing a game unfair
    (Count them, sirs, at this hour),
    Ready to dance to maddest air
    Piped by the man in power.

    The need, sore need, of this young land
    Is honest men, good sirs,
    Men as her oak trees tall and grand,
    Staunch as her stalwart firs.

    Steadfast, unswer...

In the last year I have learned,
How few men are worth my trust;
I have seen the friend I loved
Struck by death into the dust,
And fears I never knew before,
Have knocked and knocked upon my door,
"I shall hope little and ask for less,"
I said, "There is no happiness."

I have grown wise at last, but how,
Can I hide the gleam on the willow-bough,
Or keep the fragrance out of the rain
Now that April is here again?
When maples stand in a haze of fire,
What can I say to the old desire,
What shall I do with the joy in me,
That is born out of agony?

If wine and music have the power
To ease the sickness of the soul,
Let Phoebis every string explore,
And Bacchus fill the sprightly bowl:
Let them their friendly aid employ
To make my Cloe's absense light,
And seek for pleasure to destroy
The sorrows of this live-long night.

But she to-morrow will return:
Venus, be thou to-morrow great;
Thy myrtles strow, thy odours burn,
And meet thy favourite nymph in state,
Kind goddess, to no other powers
Let us to-morrow's blessings own,
Thy darling Loves shall guide the hours,
And all the day be thine alone.

Once a stranger youth to Corinth came,

Who in Athens lived, but hoped that he
From a certain townsman there might claim,

As his father's friend, kind courtesy.

Son and daughter, they

Had been wont to say

Should thereafter bride and bridegroom be.

But can he that boon so highly prized,

Save tis dearly bought, now hope to get?
They are Christians and have been baptized,

He and all of his are heathens yet.

For a newborn creed,

Like some loathsome weed,

Love and truth to root out oft will threat.

Father, daughter, all had gone to rest,

And the mother only watches late;
She receives with courtesy the guest,

And conducts him to the room of state.

Wine and food are bro...