We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
We were melted in the furnace and the pit,
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,
We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.
Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,
And a thousandth of an inch to give us play:
And now, if you will set us to our task,
We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!

We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,
We can print and plough and weave and heat and light,
We can run and race and swim and fly and dive,
We can see and hear and count and read and write!

Would you call a friend from half across the world?
If you'll let us have his name and town and state,
You shall see and hear your cracking question hurled
Across the arch of heaven while you wait.

How many times these low feet staggered,
Only the soldered mouth can tell;
Try! can you stir the awful rivet?
Try! can you lift the hasps of steel?

Stroke the cool forehead, hot so often,
Lift, if you can, the listless hair;
Handle the adamantine fingers
Never a thimble more shall wear.

Buzz the dull flies on the chamber window;
Brave shines the sun through the freckled pane;
Fearless the cobweb swings from the ceiling --
Indolent housewife, in daisies lain!

And now behold this sulking boy,
His costly presents bring no joy;
Harsh tears of anger fill his eye
Tho’ he has all that wealth can buy.
What profits it that he employs
His many gifts to make a noise?
His playroom is so placed that he
Can cause his folks no agony.

Moral:

Mere worldly wealth does not possess
The power of giving happiness.

To Iris, In Bow Street, Convent Garden

Say, cruel IRIS, pretty rake,
Dear mercenary beauty,
What annual offering shall I make,
Expressive of my duty?

My heart, a victim to thine eyes,
Should I at once deliver,
Say, would the angry fair one prize
The gift, who slights the giver?

A bill, a jewel, watch, or toy,
My rivals give and let 'em;
If gems, or gold, impart a joy,
I'll give them when I get 'em.

I'll give but not the full-blown rose,
Or rose-bud more in fashion;
Such short-liv'd offerings but disclose
A transitory passion.

I'll give thee something yet unpaid,
Not less sincere, than civil:
I'll give thee Ah! too charming maid,
I'll give thee To the devil.

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 ...

    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...

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!

    A prayer of love, O Father!
    A fair and flowery way
    Life stretches out before these
    On this their marriage day.
    O pour Thy choicest blessing,
    Withhold no gift of Thine,
    Fill all their world with beauty
    And tenderness divine!

    A prayer of love, O Father!
    This holy love and pure,
    That thrills the soul to rapture,
    O may it e'er endure!
    The richest of earth's treasures,
    The gold without alloy,
    The flower of faith unfading,
    The full, the perfect joy!

    No mist of tears or doubting,
    But in their steadfast eyes
    The light divine, the light of love,
    The light of Paradise.
    A prayer of love, O Father!
    A prayer of love to Thee,
    God's best be th...

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!'

Sitting alone, loue bids me goe and write;
Reason plucks backe, commaunding me to stay,
Boasting that shee doth still direct the way,
Els senceles loue could neuer once indite.
Loue, growing angry, vexed at the spleene,
And scorning Reasons maymed Argument,
Straight taxeth Reason, wanting to invent
Where shee with Loue conuersing hath not beene.
Reason, reproched with this coy disdaine,
Dispighteth Loue, and laugheth at her folly,
And Loue, contemning Reasons reason wholy,
Thought her in weight too light by many a graine.
    Reason, put back, doth out of sight remoue,
    And Loue alone finds reason in my loue.

They christened my brother of old,
And a saintly name he bears,
They gave him his place to hold
At the head of the belfry-stairs,
Where the minister-towers stand
And the breeding kestrels cry.
Would I change with my brother a league inland?
(Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not I!

In the flush of the hot June prime,
O'er sleek flood-tides afire,
I hear him hurry the chime
To the bidding of checked Desire;
Till the sweated ringers tire
And the wild bob-majors die.
Could I wait for my turn in the godly choir?
(Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not I!

When the smoking scud is blown,
When the greasy wind-rack lowers,
Apart and at peace and alone,
He counts the changeless hours.
He wars with darkling Powers
(I war with a darkling sea);
Would he sto...

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?

Come then, brave men, from the Land of Lakes
With steady steps and cheers;
Our country calls, as the battle breaks,
On the Northwest Pioneers.
Let the eagle scream, and the bayonet gleam!
Hurrah for the Volunteers!

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...

    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.

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, ...

All lovely things will have an ending,
All lovely things will fade and die,
And youth, that’s now so bravely spending,
Will beg a penny by and by.
Fine ladies soon are all forgotten,
And goldenrod is dust when dead,
The sweetest flesh and flowers are rotten
And cobwebs tent the brightest head.
Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!
But time goes on, and will, unheeding,
Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn,
And the wild days set true hearts bleeding.
Come back, true love! Sweet youth, remain!
But goldenrod and daisies wither,
And over them blows autumn rain,
They pass, they pass, and know not whither.

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.