"Shell-bracelets ho! Shell-bracelets ho!
Fair maids and matrons come and buy!"
Along the road, in morning's glow,
The pedlar raised his wonted cry.
The road ran straight, a red, red line,
To Khirogram, for cream renowned,
Through pasture-meadows where the kine,
In knee-deep grass, stood magic bound
And half awake, involved in mist,
That floated in dun coils profound,
Till by the sudden sunbeams kist
Rich rainbow hues broke all around.

"Shell-bracelets ho! Shell-bracelets ho!"
The roadside trees still dripped with dew,
And hung their blossoms like a show.
Who heard the cry? 'Twas but a few,
A ragged herd-boy, here and there,
With his long stick and naked feet;
A ploughman wending to his care,
The field from which he hopes the wheat;
An...

What is a poet's love? -
To write a girl a sonnet,
To get a ring, or some such thing,
And fustianize upon it.

What is a poet's fame? -
Sad hints about his reason,
And sadder praise from garreteers,
To be returned in season.

Where go the poet's lines? -
Answer, ye evening tapers!
Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls,
Speak from your folded papers!

Child of the ploughshare, smile;
Boy of the counter, grieve not,
Though muses round thy trundle-bed
Their broidered tissue weave not.

The poet's future holds
No civic wreath above him;
Nor slated roof, nor varnished chaise,
Nor wife nor child to love him.

Maid of the village inn,
Who workest woe on satin,
(The grass in black, the graves in green,
The epitaph...

From babyhood I have known the beauty of earth,
I learnt it, I think, in the strange months before birth,
I learnt it passing and passing by each moon
From the harvest month into my natal June.
My mother, the dear, the lovely I hardly knew,
Bearing me must have walked and wandered through
Stubble of silver or gold, as moon or sun
Lit earth in the days when my body was begun.
And then October with leaves splendid and blown
She watched with my little body a little grown,
And winter fell, and into our being passed
Firm frost and icy rivers and the blast
Of winds that on the iron clods of plough
Beat with an unseen charging. Then the bough
Of spring came green, and her glad body stirred
With a son's wombed leaping, and she heard
Songs of the air and woods and wate...

1.

Whoso hears a chiming for Christmas at the nighest,
Hears a sound like Angels chanting in their glee,
Hears a sound like palm-boughs waving in the highest,
Hears a sound like ripple of a crystal sea.

Sweeter than a prayer-bell for a saint in dying,
Sweeter than a death-bell for a saint at rest,
Music struck in Heaven with earth's faint replying,
"Life is good, and death is good, for Christ is Best."


2.

A holy, heavenly chime
Rings fulness in of time,
And on His Mother's breast
Our Lord God ever-Blest
Is laid a Babe at rest.

Stoop, Spirits unused to stoop,
Swoop, Angels, flying swoop,
Adoring as you gaze,
Uplifting hymns of praise, -
"Grace to the Full of Grace!"

The cave is cold and strait
T...

    A sunshiny shower,
    Won't last half an hour.

Through the green twilight of a hedge
I peered, with cheek on the cool leaves pressed,
And spied a bird upon a nest:
Two eyes she had beseeching me
Meekly and brave, and her brown breast
Throbb'd hot and quick above her heart;
And then she oped her dagger bill, -
'Twas not a chirp, as sparrows pipe
At break of day; 'twas not a trill,
As falters through the quiet even;
But one sharp solitary note,
One desperate, fierce, and vivid cry
Of valiant tears, and hopeless joy,
One passionate note of victory:
Off, like a fool afraid, I sneaked,
Smiling the smile the fool smiles best,
At the mother bird in the secret hedge
Patient upon her lonely nest.

Come, gentle sleep! thou soft restorer, come,
And close these wearied eyes, by grief oppress'd;
For one short hour, be this thy peaceful home,
And bid the sighs that rend my bosom rest.

Depriv'd of thee, at midnight's awful hour,
Oft have I listen'd to the angry wind;
While busy memory, with tyrant pow'r,
Would picture faded joys, or friends unkind.

Or tell of her who rear'd my helpless years,
But torn away, ere yet I knew her worth;
How oft, tho' nature still the thought endears,
Has my worn bosom heav'd its tribute forth.

Come, then, soft pow'r, whose balmy roses fall
As heavenly manna sweet, or morning dew;
Beneath thy wings, my troubled thoughts recall,
And, haply, lend them some serener hue.

It might be easier
To fail with land in sight,
Than gain my blue peninsula
To perish of delight.

By my friend, T. WOODWARD, ESQ., of a Group, consisting of a Donkey, a Boy, and a Dog.


Welcome, my pretty Neddy--welcome too
Thy merry Rider with his apron blue;
And thou, poor Dog, most patient thing of all,
Begging for morsels that may never fall!
Oh! 'tis a faithful group--and it might shame
Painters of bold pretence, and greater name--
To see how nature triumphs, and how rare
Such matchless proofs of Nature's triumphs are--
The smallest particle of sand may tell
With what rich ore Pactolus' tide may swell:
And Woodward! this ingenious, chaste design,
Proclaims what treasures lie within the mine--
Pupil of Cooper--Nature's favorite son--
Whom, but to name, and to admire, is one!

I

Stretching eyes west
Over the sea,
Wind foul or fair,
Always stood she
Prospect-impressed;
Solely out there
Did her gaze rest,
Never elsewhere
Seemed charm to be.

II

Always eyes east
Ponders she now -
As in devotion -
Hills of blank brow
Where no waves plough.
Never the least
Room for emotion
Drawn from the ocean
Does she allow.

When, looking deeply in thy face,
I catch the undergleam of grace
That grows beneath the outward glance,
Long looking, lost as in a trance
Of long desires that fleet and meet
Around me like the fresh and sweet
White showers of rain which, vanishing,
'Neath heaven's blue arches whirl, in spring;
Suddenly then I seem to know
Of some new fountain's overflow
In grassy basins, with a sound
That leads my fancy, past all bound,
Into a region of retreat
From this my life's bewildered heat.
Oh if my soul might always draw
From those deep fountains full of awe,
The current of my days should rise
Unto the level of thine eyes!

There is one God: Mahomed his Prophet.    Had I his power
I would take the topmost peaks of the snow-clad Himalayas,
And would range them around your dwelling, during the heats of summer,
To cool the airs that fan your serene and delicate presence,
    Had I the power.

Your courtyard should ever be filled with the fleetest of camels
Laden with inlaid armour, jewels and trappings for horses,
Ripe dates from Egypt, and spices and musk from Arabia.
And the sacred waters of Zem-Zem well, transported thither,
Should bubble and flow in your chamber, to bathe the delicate
Slender and wayworn feet of my Lord, returning from travel,
    Had I the power.


Fine woven silk, from the further East, should conceal your beauty,
Clinging around you in amorous folds; caressiv...

By J. M. Barrie and H. B. Marriott Watson, Criterion Theatre, April 16, 1891.

To other boards for pun and song and dance!
Our purpose is an essay in romance:
An old-world story where such old-world facts
As hate and love and death, through four swift acts -
Not without gleams and glances, hints and cues,
From the dear bright eyes of the Comic Muse! -
So shine and sound that, as we fondly deem,
They may persuade you to accept our dream:
Our own invention, mainly - though we take,
Somewhat for art but most for interest's sake
One for our hero who goes wandering still
In the long shadow of PARNASSUS HILL;
Scarce within eyeshot; but his tragic shade
Compels that recognition due be made,
When he comes knocking at the student's door,
Something as poet, if as b...

Tune - "Caledonian Hunt's Delight."


I.

    There was once a day - but old Time then was young -
        That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line,
    From some of your northern deities sprung,
        (Who knows not that brave Caledonia's divine?)
    From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain,
        To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would:
    Her heav'nly relations there fixed her reign,
        And pledg'd her their godheads to warrant it good.

II.

    A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war,
        The pride of her kindred the heroine grew;
    Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore
        "Whoe'er shall provoke thee, th' encounter shall rue!"
    With tillage or pasture at times she would sport,
        To...

Come, weep no more, for 'tis in vain;
Torment not thus your pretty heart;
Think, Flavia, we may meet again,
As well as that we now must part.

You sigh and weep; the gods neglect
That precious dew your eyes let fall;
Our joy and grief with like respect
They mind, and that is not at all.

We pray, in hopes they will be kind,
As if they did regard our state;
They hear, and the return we find
Is, that no prayers can alter Fate.

Then clear your brow, and look more gay;
Do not yourself to grief resign;
Who knows but that those powers may
The pair they now have parted join?

But since they have thus cruel been,
And could such constant lovers sever,
I dare not trust, lest, now they're in,
They should divide us two for ever.

Not in the thick of the fight,
Not in the press of the odds,
Do the heroes come to their height,
Or we know the demi-gods.

That stands over till peace.
We can only perceive
Men returned from the seas,
Very grateful for leave.

They grant us sudden days
Snatched from their business of war;
But we are too close to appraise
What manner of men they are.

And, whether their names go down
With age-kept victories,
Or whether they battle and drown
Unreckoned, is hid from our eyes.

They are too near to be great,
But our children shall understand
When and how our fate
Was changed, and by whose hand.

Our children shall measure their worth.
We are content to be blind...
But we know that we walk on a new-born earth<...

When first the infant bird attempts to fly,
And cautious spreads its pinions to the sky,
Each happy breeze the timid trav'ller cheers,
Assists its efforts, and allays its fears;
Return'd how pleas'd it views the shelt'ring nest
From which it rose, with doubt and fear oppress'd.

Like this, is ours; this night we ventur'd out
On juv'nile wing, appall'd by many a doubt,
Cheer'd by your sanction, every peril o'er,
With joy we hail this welcome, friendly shore:
Our little band, ambitious now to raise
A pleasing off'ring for your wreath of praise
On them bestow'd, depute me here to tell
The lively feelings that their bosoms swell;
For your indulgent and parental part,
They feel the triumph of a grateful heart:
That, each revolving year shall truly prove,
...

I stood tip-toe upon a little hill,
The air was cooling, and so very still,
That the sweet buds which with a modest pride
Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside,
Their scantly leaved, and finely tapering stems,
Had not yet lost those starry diadems
Caught from the early sobbing of the morn.
The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn,
And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept
On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept
A little noiseless noise among the leaves,
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves:
For not the faintest motion could be seen
Of all the shades that slanted o’er the green.
There was wide wand’ring for the greediest eye,
To peer about upon variety;
Far round the horizon’s crystal air to skim,
And trace the dwindle...