Out in the wastes of the West countrie,
Out where the white stars shine,
Grim and silent as such men be,
Rideth a man with history,
Anthony Considine.

For the ways of men are manifold
As their differing views in life;
Some sell themselves for the lust of gold,
And some for the lust of strife:
But this man counted the world well lost
For the love of his neighbour's wife.

They fled together, as those must flee
Whom all men hold in blame;
Each to the other must all things be
Who cross the gulf of iniquity
And live in the land of shame.

But a light-o'-love, if she sins with one,
She sinneth with ninety-nine:
The rule holds good since the world begun,
Since ever the streams began to run
And the stars began to shine.
The ru...

"He was always the one to figure things," remarked Humboldt. "Always the smart ass type, big jawed lazy bones - couldn't make a good farmer out of that sort. Didn't want to do much of anything 'cept run. All his money went on his car. Drinking in the Richelieu most every night. I suspect that's where he were coming from when it happened."

Humboldt leaned back against the store front. Twice weekly he'd take a cab into town to fetch sundry articles as he said - one day went for shopping t'other for visitin'. Retirement had given him the necessary time to concentrate almost exclusively on the latter. This was the first trip in this week and already the day was abuzz with talk of the recent mishap.

"Now let me get this straight," Russell was interjecting. "According to what Humboldt says, the car just plain left the high...

Right in the track where Sherman
Ploughed his red furrow,
Out of the narrow cabin,
Up from the cellar's burrow,
Gathered the little black people,
With freedom newly dowered,
Where, beside their Northern teacher,
Stood the soldier, Howard.
He listened and heard the children
Of the poor and long-enslavëd
Reading the words of Jesus,
Singing the songs of David.
Behold! the dumb lips speaking,
The blind eyes seeing!
Bones of the Prophet's vision
Warmed into being!
Transformed he saw them passing
Their new life's portal!
Almost it seemed the mortal
Put on the immortal.
No more with the beasts of burden,
No more with stone and clod,
But crowned with glory and honor
In the image of God!
There was the human chattel
Its manho...

The brook that down the valley
So musically drips,
Flowed never half so brightly
As the light laugh from her lips.

Her face was like the lily,
Her heart was like the rose,
Her eyes were like a heaven
Where the sunlight always glows.

She trod the earth so lightly
Her feet touched not a thorn;
Her words wore all the brightness
Of a young life's happy morn.

Along her laughter rippled
The melody of joy;
She drank from every chalice,
And tasted no alloy.

Her life was all a laughter,
Her days were all a smile,
Her heart was pure and happy,
She knew not gloom nor guile.

She rested on the bosom
Of her mother, like a flower
That blooms far in a valley
Where no storm-clouds ever lower.

And -- "M...

That love last long, let it thy first care be
To find a wife that is most fit for thee.
Be she too wealthy or too poor, be sure
Love in extremes can never long endure.

By faith alone, you say, not works,
    Man must obtain salvation;
If you are saved, the doctrine needs
    No better confirmation.

    *    *    *    *    *

My Lady Sceptical, for want of proof,
    What all believe, denies;
Yet she believes what all, with proof, deny,
    That she is wondrous wise.


    *    *    *    *    *

'The dullest ass may write
    In verse, that jingling stuff!'
Indeed, Sir? have you tried?
    'I have.' That's proof enough.

Yon fop has strangely got it in his noddle
That he excels in tragic declamation;
Kemble's the favourite, and the model,
That claims his praise, and prompts his imitation;
Now, that the praise is just, none can deny;
But the imitation gives that praise the lie:

Se lamentar augelli, o Verdi fronde.

SHE IS EVER PRESENT TO HIM.


    If the lorn bird complain, or rustling sweep
Soft summer airs o'er foliage waving slow,
Or the hoarse brook come murmuring down the steep,
Where on the enamell'd bank I sit below
With thoughts of love that bid my numbers flow;
'Tis then I see her, though in earth she sleep!
Her, form'd in heaven! I see, and hear, and know!
Responsive sighing, weeping as I weep:
"Alas," she pitying says, "ere yet the hour,
Why hurry life away with swifter flight?
Why from thy eyes this flood of sorrow pour?
No longer mourn my fate! through death my days
Become eternal! to eternal light
These eyes, which seem'd in darkness closed, I raise!"

DACRE.


    Where the gr...

There was a youth around whose early way
White angels hung in converse and sweet choir,
Teaching in summer clouds his thought to stray, -
In cloud and far horizon to desire.
His life was nursed in beauty, like the stream
Born of clear showers and the mountain dew,
Close under snow-clad summits where they gleam
Forever pure against heaven's orient blue.
Within the city's shades he walked at last.
Faint and more faint in sad recessional
Down the dim corridors of Time outworn,
A chorus ebbed from that forsaken past,
A hymn of glories fled beyond recall
With the lost heights and splendor of life's morn.

In qual parte del cielo, in quale idea.

HE EXTOLS THE BEAUTY AND VIRTUE OF LAURA.


    Say from what part of heaven 'twas Nature drew,
From what idea, that so perfect mould
To form such features, bidding us behold,
In charms below, what she above could do?
What fountain-nymph, what dryad-maid e'er threw
Upon the wind such tresses of pure gold?
What heart such numerous virtues can unfold?
Although the chiefest all my fond hopes slew.
He for celestial charms may look in vain,
Who has not seen my fair one's radiant eyes,
And felt their glances pleasingly beguile.
How Love can heal his wounds, then wound again,
He only knows, who knows how sweet her sighs,
How sweet her converse, and how sweet her smile.

NOTT.


    In ...

0 heart of mine - if I were but a swallow -
A thing so fearless, swift of flight, and free -
On wings unwearied I would find and follow
Some path that led to thee!

Were I a rose out in the garden growing
My sweetness I would give the vagrant breeze
For he, perchance, might meet thee all unknowing -
Yet bring thee memories.

When God created this good world
A few stupendous peaks were hurled
From His strong hand, and they remain
The wonder of the level plain.
But these colossal heights are rare,
While shifting sands are everywhere.

So with the race.    The centuries pass
And nations fall like leaves of grass.
They die, forgotten and unsung;
While straight from God some souls are flung,
To live immortal and sublime.
So lives great Lincoln for all time.

From the darksome earth-mine lifted,
    From the clay and from the rock
    Loosen'd out with many a shock;
Slowly from the clay-dross sifted,
    Molten in the fire bright-burning,
    Ever purer, whiter turning--
Ho! the anvil, cool and steady,
For the soften'd rod make ready!

Blow, thou wind, upon the flame,
    Raise it ever higher, hotter,
    Till, like clay before the potter,
Soft become the iron frame,
    Bending at the worker's will,
    All his purpose to fulfil--
Ho! the fire-purged rod is ready
For the anvil, cool and steady!

At each stroke the sparks fly brightly
    Upward from the glowing mass;
    Hail! the stroke that makes them pass,
Fall it heavy, fall it lightly!
    Now the stubborn strength bends humbly,<...

    Love, thou gayest fancy-weaver,
    Heart-betrayer, soul-deceiver,
    Come with all thy clinging kisses;
    Bringing all thy beaming blisses;
    It may serve the cynic's parts,
        If he curse and if he scout thee,
    But, O, where were gentle hearts,
        If they had to live without thee!

    Weave the spells of thy beguiling
    'Round and 'round me with thy smiling,
    Till the ashen cheek is beaming,
    And the faded eye is gleaming;
    Millions may endure the fight
        In the battle vain to end thee,
    But when taste they thy delight
        They will serve thee and defend thee.

    Bring thy little winsome graces
    And the sweets of glad embraces,
    Till the pleasures all are dancing
    Into mazy wh...

Now the last, long rays of sunset
To the tree-tops are ascending,
And the ash-gray evening shadows
Weave themselves around the earth.

On the crest of yonder mountain,
Now are seen from out the distance
Slowly fading crimson traces;
Footprints of the dying day.

Blood-stained banners, torn and tattered,
Hanging in the western corner,
Dip their parched and burning edges
In the cooling ocean wave.

Smoothly roll the crystal wavelets
Through the dusky veils of twilight,
That are trembling down from heaven
O'er the bosom of the sea.

Soft a little wind is blowing
O'er the gently rippling waters--
What they whisper, what they murmur,
Who is wise enough to say?

Broad her snow-white sails outspreading
'Gainst the qui...

I know that he exists
Somewhere, in silence.
He has hid his rare life
From our gross eyes.

'T is an instant's play,
'T is a fond ambush,
Just to make bliss
Earn her own surprise!

But should the play
Prove piercing earnest,
Should the glee glaze
In death's stiff stare,

Would not the fun
Look too expensive?
Would not the jest
Have crawled too far?

With anxious eyes and dry, expectant lips,
Within the sculptured stoa by the sea,
All day she waited while, like ghostly ships,
Long clouds rolled over Paphos: the wild bee
Hung in the sultry poppy, half asleep,
Beside the shepherd and his drowsy sheep.

White-robed she waited day by day; alone
With the white temple's shrined concupiscence,
The Paphian goddess on her obscene throne,
Binding all chastity to violence,
All innocence to lust that feels no shame
Venus Mylitta born of filth and flame.

So must they haunt her marble portico,
The devotees of Paphos, passion-pale
As moonlight streaming through the stormy snow;
Dark eyes desirous of the stranger sail,
The gods shall bring across the Cyprian Sea,
With him elected to their mastery.

The London lights are far abeam
Behind a bank of cloud,
Along the shore the gaslights gleam,
The gale is piping loud;
And down the Channel, groping blind,
We drive her through the haze
Towards the land we left behind,
The good old land of `never mind',
And old Australian ways.

The narrow ways of English folk
Are not for such as we;
They bear the long-accustomed yoke
Of staid conservancy:
But all our roads are new and strange,
And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.

The city folk go to and fro
Behind a prison's bars,
They never feel the breezes blow
And never see the stars;
They never hear in blossomed trees
The music low and swee...

"O hone a rie'! O hone a rie!"
The pride of Albin's line is o'er,
And fall'n Glenartney's stateliest tree;
We ne'er shall see Lord Ronald more!"

O, sprung from great Macgillianore,
The chief that never fear'd a foe,
How matchless was thy broad claymore,
How deadly thine unerring bow!

Well can the Saxon widows tell,
How, on the Teith's resounding shore,
The boldest Lowland warriors fell,
As down from Lenny's pass you bore.

But o'er his hills, in festal day,
How blazed Lord Ronald's beltrane tree,
While youths and maids in light strathspey,
So nimbly danced with Highland glee!

Cheer'd by the strength of Ronald's shell,
E'en age forgot his tresses hoar;
But now the loud lament we swell,
O ne'er to see Lord Ronald more!
...