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Bells ring out a joyful sound,
Old and young alike seem gay;
One more year has gone its round,
Again we greet a New Year's Day.
Whilst to some they tell of cheer,
Other hearts may grief betide,
For 'twas in the glad New Year
When our darling Cora died.

Like a snowdrop, pure and fair,
She had blossomed in our home;
Her we nursed with tender care,
Lest Death's blighting frost should come.
And we prayed to keep her here,
But our pleading was denied; -
Early in the glad New Year,
Little darling Cora died.

Death had taken some before,
Some from whom 'twas hard to part;
And their voices now no more,
Come to cheer the longing heart.
In that one frail blossom dear,
Centered all our hope and pride;
Alas! Then came the sad New Y...

    I had fiddled all day at the county fair.
    But driving home "Butch" Weldy and Jack McGuire,
    Who were roaring full, made me fiddle and fiddle
    To the song of Susie Skinner, while whipping the horses
    Till they ran away. Blind as I was, I tried to get out
    As the carriage fell in the ditch,
    And was caught in the wheels and killed.
    There's a blind man here with a brow
    As big and white as a cloud.
    And all we fiddlers, from highest to lowest,
    Writers of music and tellers of stories
    Sit at his feet,
    And hear him sing of the fall of Troy.

    In winter, you were
    a flash of light,
    tundra against
    Arctic floor

    Warm breath
    stirred yr
    summer's breast
    and I saw
    windblown hair
    the colour of kelp
    transfix
    the lavender print
    of a scalp strewn
    shore

    Later,
    tiny bits
    from
    a calico dress
    became domiciled wings
    off butterflies,
    miniature bitterns
    ever more shadowy
    strewn across the Barrens,
    an unbridled strength from that

    Faraway isle released to orchestrate sunlight
    amongst all colonies that flower -
    a statuesque Red Admiral,
    Banded Purple,
    feckless Comma
    all aswirl to the
    pipes of a Devil's Paintbrush...

        I've a lily of the Valley
        That I'm keeping here for you;
        I care for and protect it,
        And water it with dew.
        It is a living emblem
        Of the wonderful domain,
        Where all is pure and love-like,
        And where we feel no pain.

        Yes, the Lily of the Valley
        Is a tie twixt you and me;
        For every time you see one
        Think how happy I must be.
        I'm an atom of the infinite,
        How wonderful it seems;
        Yet from your sphere the finite
        But a thin veil intervenes.

Return to greet me, colours that were my joy,
Not in the woeful crimson of men slain,
But shining as a garden; come with the streaming
Banners of dawn and sundown after rain.

I want to fill my gaze with blue and silver,
Radiance through living roses, spires of green
Rising in young-limbed copse and lovely wood,
Where the hueless wind passes and cries unseen.

I am not sad; only I long for lustre, -
Tired of the greys and browns and the leafless ash.
I would have hours that move like a glitter of dancers
Far from the angry guns that boom and flash.

Return, musical, gay with blossom and fleetness,
Days when my sight shall be clear and my heart rejoice;
Come from the sea with breadth of approaching brightness,
When the blithe wind laughs on the hills ...

She mutters and stoops by the lone bayou
The little green leaves are hushed on the trees
An owl in an oak cries"Who-oh-who,"
And a fox barks back where the moon slants through
The moss that sways to a sudden breeze…
Or That she sees,
Whose eyes are coals in the light o' the moon.
"Soon, oh, soon," hear her croon,
" Woe, oh, woe to the octoroon!"

She mutters and kneels and her bosom is bare
The little green leaves are stirred on the trees
A black bat brushes her unkempt hair,
And the hiss of a snake glides 'round her there…
Or is it the voice of the ghostly breeze,
Or That she sees,
Whose mouth is flame in the light o' the moon?
"Soon, oh, soon," hear her croon,
"Woe, oh, woe to the octoroon!"

She mutters and digs and buries it deep
T...

Morns like these we parted;
Noons like these she rose,
Fluttering first, then firmer,
To her fair repose.

Never did she lisp it,
And 't was not for me;
She was mute from transport,
I, from agony!

Till the evening, nearing,
One the shutters drew --
Quick! a sharper rustling!
And this linnet flew!

Noon's fervid hour perchance six thousand miles
From hence is distant; and the shadowy cone
Almost to level on our earth declines;
When from the midmost of this blue abyss
By turns some star is to our vision lost.
And straightway as the handmaid of the sun
Puts forth her radiant brow, all, light by light,
Fade, and the spangled firmament shuts in,
E'en to the loveliest of the glittering throng.
Thus vanish'd gradually from my sight
The triumph, which plays ever round the point,
That overcame me, seeming (for it did)
Engirt by that it girdeth. Wherefore love,
With loss of other object, forc'd me bend
Mine eyes on Beatrice once again.

If all, that hitherto is told of her,
Were in one praise concluded, 't were too weak
To furnish out this turn. Mine ey...