I long for the streets but the Lord knoweth best,
For there I am never a saint;
There are lovable characters out in the West,
With humour heroic and quaint;
And, be it Up Country, or be it Out Back,
When I shall have gone to my Home,
I trust to be buried 'twixt River and Track
Where my lovable characters roam.

There are lovable characters drag through the scrub,
Where the Optimist ever prevails;
There are lovable characters hang round the pub,
There are lovable jokers at sales
Where the auctioneer's one of the lovable wags
(Maybe from his "order" estranged),
And the beer is on tap, and the pigs in the bags
Of the purchasing cockies are changed.

There were lovable characters out in the West,
Of fifty hot summers, or more,
Who could not be ...

I am looking for Love. Has he passed this way,
With eyes as blue as the skies of May,
And a face as fair as the summer dawn? -
You answer back, but I wander on, -
For you say: "Oh, yes; but his eyes were gray,
And his face as dim as a rainy day."

Good friends, I query, I search for Love;
His eyes are as blue as the skies above,
And his smile as bright as the midst of May
When the truce-bird pipes: Has he passed this way?
And one says: "Ay; but his face, alack!
Frowned as he passed, and his eyes were black."

O who will tell me of Love? I cry!
His eyes are as blue as the mid-May sky,
And his face as bright as the morning sun;
And you answer and mock me, every one,
That his eyes were dark, and his face was wan,
And he passed you frowning and wand...

The world is woven all of dream and error
And but one sureness in our truth may lie--
That when we hold to aught our thinking's mirror
We know it not by knowing it thereby.
For but one side of things the mirror knows,
And knows it colded from its solidness.
A double lie its truth is; what it shows
By true show's false and nowhere by true place.
Thought clouds our life's day-sense with strangeness, yet
Never from strangeness more than that it's strange
Doth buy our perplexed thinking, for we get
But the words' sense from words--knowledge, truth, change.
    We know the world is false, not what is true.
    Yet we think on, knowing we ne'er shall know.

He who hath glory lost, nor hath
Found any soul to fellow his,
Among his foes in scorn and wrath
Holding to ancient nobleness,
That high unconsortable one,
His love is his companion.

I wonder
how it would be here with you,
where the wind
that has shaken off its dust in low valleys
touches one cleanly,
as with a new-washed hand,
and pain
is as the remote hunger of droning things,
and anger
but a little silence
sinking into the great silence.

Dire were the horrors of that ruthless storm,
That for young Lycid form'd a wat'ry grave;
Oh! many wept to see his fainting form
Unaided sink beneath th' o'erwhelming wave.

Ah! hapless youth! yet, tho' the billowy waste
Has thus, with ruthless fury, snatch'd away
Thy various charms, thy genius, wit, and taste,
From those who fondly watch'd their rich display, -

Their cherish'd, lov'd, impression still shall last;
Mem'ry shall ride triumphant o'er the storm,
Shall shield thy gen'rous virtues from the blast,
And Fancy animate again thy form.

Yes, gentle youth! to her, tho' little known,
Save by the rich effusions of thy lyre,
Th' admiring Muse shall breathe a mournful tone,
And sounds of grief shall o'er the floods expire.

But, far more g...

        You saw her last, the ball-room's belle,
            A soufflé, lace and roses blent;
        Your worldly worship moved her then;
            She does not know you now, in Lent.

        See her at prayer! Her pleading hands
            Bear not one gem of all her store.
        Her face is saint-like. Be rebuked
            By those pure eyes, and gaze no more

        Turn, turn away! But carry hence
            The lesson she has dumbly taught
        That bright young creature kneeling there
            With every feeling, every thought

        Absorbed in high and holy dreams
            Of new Spring dresses truth to say,
        To them the time is sanctified
            From Shrove-tide until Easter day.

Break over the waiting hill-tops,
    White dawn of the Christmas morn!
For the angels have sung through the midnight,
    That the wonderful Babe is born.

And still in the slumbering valleys,
    The night's black tents are up,
And the young moon stands on the mountains,
    Clear and fair as a silver cup.

Under the cottage rafters,
    Silent and soft and deep,
On the swart low brow of the toiler,
    Settles the dew of sleep.

And some that watch and waken,
    Are dreaming of eyes whose ray
Was long ago quenched and hidden
    Under the shroud away.

Oh, sing thy jubilant anthem
    Over the frozen mould,
And tell that wonderful story
    Again, that never grows old!

For under the year's broad shadow,
  ...

John Pierpont, the eloquent preacher and poet of Boston.


Not as a poor requital of the joy
With which my childhood heard that lay of thine,
Which, like an echo of the song divine
At Bethlehem breathed above the Holy Boy,
Bore to my ear the Airs of Palestine,
Not to the poet, but the man I bring
In friendship's fearless trust my offering
How much it lacks I feel, and thou wilt see,
Yet well I know that thou Last deemed with me
Life all too earnest, and its time too short
For dreamy ease and Fancy's graceful sport;
And girded for thy constant strife with wrong,
Like Nehemiah fighting while he wrought
The broken walls of Zion, even thy song
Hath a rude martial tone, a blow in every thought!

Out of the night that covers me,
    Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
    for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
    I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
    My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
    Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
    Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
    How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
    I am the captain of my soul.

The artist and the loom unseen,
In textures soft as crepe de chine
Spring weaves her royal robe of green,
    With grasses fringed and daisies dotted,
With furzy tufts like mosses fine
And showy clumps of eglantine,
With dainty shrub and creeping vine
    Upon the verdant fabric knotted.

Oh, winter takes our love away
For ashen hues of sober gray!
So when the blooming, blushing May
    Comes out in bodice, cap, and kirtle,
With arbutus her corsage laced,
And roses clinging to her waist,
We crown her charming queen of taste,
    Her chaplet-wreath of modest myrtle.

For eighteen centuries and more
Her fairy hands have modeled o'er
The same habiliments she wore
    At her primeval coronation;
And still the pattern exquisite,...

From the door of the homestead the mother looks forth,
With a glance half of hope, half of fear,
For the clock in the corner now points to the hour
When the children she loves should appear.
For have they not promised, whatever betide,
On this their dear mother's birthday,
To gather once more round the family board,
Their dutiful service to pay?

From the East and the West, from the North and the South,
In communion and intercourse sweet,
Her children have come, on this festival day,
To sit, as of old, at her feet.
And our mother,-- God bless her benevolent face!--
How her heart thrills with motherly joys,
As she stands at the portal, with arms opened wide,
To welcome her girls and her boys.

And yet, when the first joyful greetings are o'er,
Wh...

Spinse amor e dolor ove ir non debbe.

REFLECTING THAT LAURA IS IN HEAVEN, HE REPENTS HIS EXCESSIVE GRIEF, AND IS CONSOLED.


    Sorrow and Love encouraged my poor tongue,
Discreet in sadness, where it should not go,
To speak of her for whom I burn'd and sung,
What, even were it true, 'twere wrong to show.
That blessèd saint my miserable state
Might surely soothe, and ease my spirit's strife,
Since she in heaven is now domesticate
With Him who ever ruled her heart in life.
Wherefore I am contented and consoled,
Nor would again in life her form behold;
Nay, I prefer to die, and live alone.
Fairer than ever to my mental eye,
I see her soaring with the angels high,
Before our Lord, her maker and my own.

MACGREGOR.


   ...

Day after day behold me plying
My pen within an office drear;
The dullest dog, till homeward hieing,
Then lo! I reign a king of cheer.
A throne have I of padded leather,
A little court of kiddies three,
A wife who smiles whate'er the weather,
A feast of muffins, jam and tea.

The table cleared, a romping battle,
A fairy tale, a "Children, bed,"
A kiss, a hug, a hush of prattle
(God save each little drowsy head!)
A cozy chat with wife a-sewing,
A silver lining clouds that low'r,
Then she too goes, and with her going,
I come again into my Hour.

I poke the fire, I snugly settle,
My pipe I prime with proper care;
The water's purring in the kettle,
Rum, lemon, sugar, all are there.
And now the honest grog is steaming,
And now the...

Do not say that life is waning,
    Or that hope's sweet day is set;
While I've thee and love remaining,
    Life is in the horizon yet.

Do not think those charms are flying,
    Tho' thy roses fade and fall;
Beauty hath a grace undying,
    Which in thee survives them all.

Not for charms, the newest, brightest,
    That on other cheeks may shine,
Would I change the least, the slightest.
    That is lingering now o'er thine.

It was the schooner Hesperus,
    That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
    To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
    Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
    That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
    His pipe was in his month,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
    The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailor,
    Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
    For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
    And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
    And a scornful laugh laughed he.

The night is hung above us, love,
With heavy stars that love us, love,
With clouds that curl in purple and pearl,
And winds that whisper of us, love:
On burly hills and valleys, that lie dimmer,
The amber foot-falls of the moon-sylphs glimmer.

The moon is still a crescent, love;
And here with thee 'tis pleasant, love,
To sit and dream in its thin gleam,
And list thy sighs liquescent, love:
To see thy eyes and fondle thy dark tresses,
Set on warm lips imperishable kisses.

The sudden-glaring fire-flies
Swim o'er the hollow gyre-wise,
And spurt and shine like jostled wine
At lips on which desire lies:
Or like the out-flashed hair of elf or fairy
In rapid morrice whirling feat and airy.

Up, - all the blue West sundering, -
A creamy...

Approach in silence. 'tis no vulgar tale
Which I, the Dryad of this hoary oak,
Pronounce to mortal ears. The second age
Now hasteneth to its period, since I rose
On this fair lawn. The groves of yonder vale
Are, all, my offspring: and each Nymph, who guards
The copses and the furrow'd fields beyond,
Obeys me. Many changes have I seen
In human things, and many awful deeds
Of justice, when the ruling hand of Jove
Against the tyrants of the land, against
The unhallow'd sons of luxury and guile,
Was arm'd for retribution. Thus at length
Expert in laws divine, I know the paths
Of wisdom, and erroneous folly's end
Have oft presag'd: and now well-pleas'd I wait
Each evening till a noble youth, who loves
My shade, awhile releas'd from public cares,
Yon peace...