Princes and fav'rites are most dear, while they
By giving and receiving hold the play;
But the relation then of both grows poor,
When these can ask, and kings can give no more.

What d'ye think, lad; what d'ye think,
As the roaring crowds go by?
As the banners flare and the brasses blare
And the great guns rend the sky?
As the women laugh like they'd all gone mad,
And the champagne glasses clink:
Oh, you're grippin' me hand so tightly, lad,
I'm a-wonderin': what d'ye think?

D'ye think o' the boys we used to know,
And how they'd have topped the fun?
Tom and Charlie, and Jack and Joe -
Gone now, every one.
How they'd have cheered as the joy-bells chime,
And they grabbed each girl for a kiss!
And now - they're rottin' in Flanders slime,
And they gave their lives - for this.

Or else d'ye think of the many a time
We wished we too was dead,
Up to our knees in the freezin' grime,
With the fires of hell overh...

To a Highland Air.


I.

                The tither morn,
                When I forlorn,
    Aneath an oak sat moaning,
                I did na trow
                I'd see my Jo,
    Beside me, gain the gloaming.
                But he sae trig,
                Lap o'er the rig.
    And dawtingly did cheer me,
                When I, what reck,
                Did least expec',
    To see my lad so near me.

II.

                His bonnet he,
                A thought ajee,
    Cock'd sprush when first he clasp'd me;
                And I, I wat,
                Wi' fainness grat,
    While in his grips be press'd me.
                Deil tak' the war!
                I late and air
    Hae...

Slowly the mist o'er the meadow was creeping,
Bright on the dewy buds glistened the sun,
When from his couch, while his children were sleeping,
Rose the bold rebel and shouldered his gun.
Waving her golden veil
Over the silent dale,
Blithe looked the morning on cottage and spire;
Hushed was his parting sigh,
While from his noble eye
Flashed the last sparkle of liberty's fire.

On the smooth green where the fresh leaf is springing
Calmly the first-born of glory have met;
Hark! the death-volley around them is ringing!
Look! with their life-blood the young grass is wet
Faint is the feeble breath,
Murmuring low in death,
"Tell to our sons how their fathers have died;"
Nerveless the iron hand,
Raised for its native land,
Lies by the weapon that ...

Hear the voice of the Bard !
Who present, past, and future sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word,
That walked among the ancient trees,

Calling the lapsed soul,
And weeping in the evening dew;
That might control
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen, light renew!

'O Earth, O Earth, return!
Arise from out the dewy grass;
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumberous mass.

'Turn away no more;
Why wilt thou turn away?
The starry floor,
The watery shore,
Is given thee till the break of day.'

As many laws and lawyers do express
Nought but a kingdom's ill-affectedness;
Even so, those streets and houses do but show
Store of diseases where physicians flow.

Handsome you are, and proper you will be
Despite of all your infortunity:
Live long and lovely, but yet grow no less
In that your own prefixed comeliness:
Spend on that stock: and when your life must fall,
Leave others beauty to set up withal.

Dost thou not hear the silver bell,
    Thro' yonder lime-trees ringing?
'Tis my lady's light gazelle;
    To me her love thoughts bringing,--
All the while that silver bell
    Around his dark neck ringing.

See, in his mouth he bears a wreath,
    My love hath kist in tying;
Oh, what tender thoughts beneath
    Those silent flowers are lying,--
Hid within the mystic wreath,
    My love hath kist in trying!

Welcome, dear gazelle, to thee,
    And joy to her, the fairest.
Who thus hath breathed her soul to me.
    In every leaf thou bearest;
Welcome, dear gazelle, to thee,
    And joy to her the fairest!

Hail ye living, speaking flowers,
    That breathe of her who bound ye;
Oh, 'twas not in fields, or bowers;
    'Twa...

He lived beyond men, and so stood
Admitted to the brotherhood
Of beauty: dreams, with which he trod
Companioned like some sylvan god.
And oft men wondered, when his thought
Made all their knowledge seem as naught,
If he, like Uther's mystic son,
Had not been born for Avalon.
When wandering mid the whispering trees,
His soul communed with every breeze;
Heard voices calling from the glades,
Bloom-words of the Leimoniäds;
Or Dryads of the ash and oak,
Who syllabled his name and spoke
With him of presences and powers
That glimpsed in sunbeams, gloomed in showers.
By every violet-hallowed brook,
Where every bramble-matted nook
Rippled and laughed with water sounds,
He walked like one on sainted grounds,
Fearing intrusion on the spell
That k...

My gentle harp, once more I waken
    The sweetness of thy slumbering strain;
In tears our last farewell was taken,
    And now in tears we meet again.
No light of joy hath o'er thee broken,
    But, like those Harps whose heavenly skill
Of slavery, dark as thine, hath spoken,
    Thou hang'st upon the willows still.

And yet, since last thy chord resounded,
    An hour of peace and triumph came,
And many an ardent bosom bounded
    With hopes--that now art turned to shame.
Yet even then, while Peace was singing
    Her halcyon song o'er land and sea,
Tho' joy and hope to others bringing,
    She only brought new tears to thee.

Then, who can ask for notes of pleasure,
    My drooping Harp, from chords like thine?
Alas, the lark's gay morni...

Oh! blame not the bard, if he fly to the bowers,
    Where Pleasure lies, carelessly smiling at Fame;
He was born for much more, and in happier hours
    His soul might have burned with a holier flame.
The string, that now languishes loose o'er the lyre,
    Might have bent a proud bow to the warrior's dart;[2]
And the lip, which now breathes but the song of desire,
    Might have poured the full tide of a patriot's heart.

But alas for his country!--her pride is gone by,
    And that spirit is broken, which never would bend;
O'er the ruin her children in secret must sigh,
    For 'tis treason to love her, and death to defend.
Unprized are her sons, till they've learned to betray;
    Undistinguished they live, if they shame not their sires;
And the torc...

I

Within her gilded cage confined,
I saw a dazzling Belle,
A Parrot of that famous kind
Whose name is Non-Pareil.

Like beads of glossy jet her eyes;
And, smoothed by Nature's skill,
With pearl or gleaming agate vies
Her finely-curved bill.

Her plumy mantle's living hues
In mass opposed to mass,
Outshine the splendour that imbues
The robes of pictured glass.

And, sooth to say, an apter Mate
Did never tempt the choice
Of feathered Thing most delicate
In figure and in voice.

But, exiled from Australian bowers,
And singleness her lot,
She trills her song with tutored powers,
Or mocks each casual note.

No more of pity for regrets
With which she may have striven!
Now but in wantonness she frets,<...

[1]

Two parrots lived, a sire and son,
On roastings from a royal fire.
Two demigods, a son and sire,
These parrots pension'd for their fun.
Time tied the knot of love sincere:
The sires grew to each other dear;
The sons, in spite of their frivolity,
Grew comrades boon, in joke and jollity;
At mess they mated, hot or cool;
Were fellow-scholars at a school.
Which did the bird no little honour, since
The boy, by king begotten, was a prince.
By nature fond of birds, the prince, too, petted
A sparrow, which delightfully coquetted.
These rivals, both of unripe feather,
One day were frolicking together:
As oft befalls such little folks,
A quarrel follow'd from their jokes.
The sparrow, quite uncircumspect,
Was by the parrot sadly ...

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

Enlightened Teacher, gladly from thy hand
Have I received this proof of pains bestowed
By Thee to guide thy Pupils on the road
That, in our native isle, and every land,
The Church, when trusting in divine command
And in her Catholic attributes, hath trod:
O may these lessons be with profit scanned
To thy heart's wish, thy labour blest by God!
So the bright faces of the young and gay
Shall look more bright, the happy, happier still;
Catch, in the pauses of their keenest play,
Motions of thought which elevate the will
And, like the Spire that from your classic Hill
Points heavenward, indicate the end and way.

I slept, 'twas midnight, in my bosom woke,

As though 'twere day, my love-o'erflowing heart;
To me it seemed like night, when day first broke;

What is't to me, whate'er it may impart?

She was away; the world's unceasing strife

For her alone I suffer'd through the heat
Of sultry day; oh, what refreshing life

At cooling eve! my guerdon was complete.

The sun now set, and wand'ring hand in hand,

His last and blissful look we greeted then;
While spake our eyes, as they each other scann'd:

"From the far east, let's trust, he'll come again!"

At midnight! the bright stars, in vision blest,

Guide to the threshold where she slumbers calm:
Oh be it mine, there too at length to rest,

Yet howsoe'er this prove, lif...

Now since nor grief nor fear was longer there,
Each thought on her fair face was clear to see,
Composed into the calmness of despair -
Not like a flame extinguished violently,
But one consuming of its proper light.
Even so, in peace, serene of soul, passed she.
Even as a lamp, so lucid, softly-bright,
Whose sustenance doth fail by slow degrees,
Wearing unto the end, its wonted plight.
Not pale, but whiter than the snow one sees
Flaking a hillside through the windless air.
Like one o'erwearied, she reposed in peace
As 't were a sweet sleep filled each lovely eye,
The soul already having fled from there.
And this is what dull fools have named to die.
Upon her fair face death itself seemed fair.

A Roman Master stands on Grecian ground,
And to the people at the Isthmian Games
Assembled, He, by a herald's voice, proclaims
THE LIBERTY OF GREECE: the words rebound
Until all voices in one voice are drowned;
Glad acclamation by which air was rent!
And birds, high-flying in the element,
Dropped to the earth, astonished at the sound!
Yet were the thoughtful grieved; and still that voice
Haunts, with sad echoes, musing Fancy's ear:
Ah! that a 'Conqueror's' words should be so dear:
Ah! that a 'boon' could shed such rapturous joys!
A gift of that which is not to be given
By all the blended powers of Earth and Heaven.