It worn't for her winnin ways,
Nor for her bonny face
But shoo wor th' only lass we had,
An that quite alters th' case.

We'd two fine lads as yo need see,
An' weel we love 'em still;
But shoo war th' only lass we had,
An' we could spare her ill.

We call'd her bi mi mother's name,
It saanded sweet to me;
We little thowt ha varry sooin
Awr pet wod have to dee.

Aw used to watch her ivery day,
Just like a oppenin bud;
An' if aw couldn't see her change,
Aw fancied' at aw could.

Throo morn to neet her little tongue
Wor allus on a stir;
Awve heeard a deeal o' childer lisp,
But nooan at lispt like her.

Sho used to play all sooarts o' tricks,
'At childer shouldn't play;
But then, they wor soa nicely done,

Ahi bella libertà, come tu m' hai.

HE DEPLORES HIS LOST LIBERTY AND THE UNHAPPINESS OF HIS PRESENT STATE.


    Alas! fair Liberty, thus left by thee,
Well hast thou taught my discontented heart
To mourn the peace it felt, ere yet Love's dart
Dealt me the wound which heal'd can never be;
Mine eyes so charm'd with their own weakness grow
That my dull mind of reason spurns the chain;
All worldly occupation they disdain,
Ah! that I should myself have train'd them so.
Naught, save of her who is my death, mine ear
Consents to learn; and from my tongue there flows
No accent save the name to me so dear;
Love to no other chase my spirit spurs,
No other path my feet pursue; nor knows
My hand to write in other praise but hers.

MACGREGOR.

Of all the girls that are so smart,
    There's none like Pretty Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
    And lives in our alley.
There's ne'er a lady in the land
    That's half so sweet as Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
    And lives in our alley.

Her father he makes cabbage-nets,
    And through the streets does cry them;
Her mother she sells laces long
    To such as please to buy them:
But sure such folk can have no part
    In such a girl as Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
    And lives in our alley.

When she is by, I leave my work,
    I love her so sincerely;
My master comes, like any Turk,
    And bangs me most severely:
But let him bang, long as he will,
    I'll bear it all for Sally;
She is...

I.

Only a ringlet of flaxen hair,
    Tied with a ribbon blue,
Laid by the hand of a mother there--
    Cherished with love so true!


II.

Only a soft and silken curl,
    Bound with a knotted bow;
Worn on the head of a little girl
    Lost in the long-ago.


III.

Only a hallowed treasure kept
    From the grave's decay and mold,
Over which her eyes have wept
    With anguish all untold!


IV.

Only a link in the golden chain,
    By Death's cold hand unbroken,
Which leads to where she'll meet again
    The wearer of this token.


V.

Only a relic undefiled,
    Enshrined in a broken heart--
Rent in twain when a darling child
    And a loving mother part...

Through the low grey archway children's feet that pass
Quicken, glad to find the sweetest haunt of all.
Brightest wildflowers gleaming deep in lustiest grass,
Glorious weeds that glisten through the green sea's glass,
Match not now this marvel, born to fade and fall.
Roses like a rainbow wrought of roses rise
Right and left and forward, shining toward the sun.
Nay, the rainbow lit of sunshine droops and dies
Ere we dream it hallows earth and seas and skies;
Ere delight may dream it lives, its life is done.
Round the border hemmed with high deep hedges round
Go the children, peering over or between
Where the dense bright oval wall of box inwound,
Reared about the roses fast within it bound,
Gives them grace to glance at glories else unseen.
Flower outlightening flow...

"Teach me, love, to be true;
    Teach me, love, to love;
Teach me to be pure like you.
    It will be more than enough!

"Ah, and in days to come,
    Give me, my seraph, too,
A son nobler than I,
    A daughter true like you:

"A son to battle the wrong,
    To seek and strive for the right;
A beautiful daughter of song,
    To point us on to the light!"

And who feels discord now or sorrow?
Love is the universe to-day -
These are the slaves of dim to-morrow,
Darkening Life's labyrinthine way.

I give you the health of the oldest friend
That, short of eternity, earth can lend, -
A friend so faithful and tried and true
That nothing can wean him from me and you.

When first we screeched in the sudden blaze
Of the daylight's blinding and blasting rays,
And gulped at the gaseous, groggy air,
This old, old friend stood waiting there.

And when, with a kind of mortal strife,
We had gasped and choked into breathing life,
He watched by the cradle, day and night,
And held our hands till we stood upright.

From gristle and pulp our frames have grown
To stringy muscle and solid bone;
While we were changing, he altered not;
We might forget, but he never forgot.

He came with us to the college class, -
Little cared he for the steward's pa...

Thin summer rain on grass and bush and hedge,
    Reddening the road and deepening the green
On wide, blurred lawn, and in close-tangled sedge;
    Veiling in gray the landscape stretched between
    These low broad meadows and the pale hills seen
But dimly on the far horizon's edge.


In these transparent-clouded, gentle skies,
    Wherethrough the moist beams of the soft June sun
Might any moment break, no sorrow lies,
    No note of grief in swollen brooks that run,
    No hint of woe in this subdued, calm tone
Of all the prospect unto dreamy eyes.


Only a tender, unnamed half-regret
    For the lost beauty of the gracious morn;
A yearning aspiration, fainter yet,
    For brighter suns in joyous days unborn,
    Now while brief showers ...

I here engage
Upon this page
    A picture to portray,
Of two of an age
Yet neither a sage,
    But right honest hearts have they.
Each loves to play
And have his own way,
Yet I'm happy to say
    They quarrel, if ever, but seldom.
Though competent quite
To maintain their own right,
And even to fight,
    Yet peace to their bosom is welcome.
Both go to school,
And learn by rule
    That in neither a dunce we may find;
Both read and spell
And like it well;
    Thus with pleasure is profit combined.
One's eyes are black,
The other's blue;
    They both have honest hearts and true,
    And love each other dearly:
One's father, is brother
To the other one's mother,
    So cousins german are they most clearly;
...

Bridegroom
I give you my house and my lands, all golden with harvest;
My sword, my shield, and my jewels, the spoils of my strife,
My strength and my dreams, and aught I have gathered of glory,
And to-night - to-night, I shall give you my very life.

Bride
I may not raise my eyes, O my Lord, towards you,
And I may not speak: what matter? my voice would fail.
But through my dowacast lashes, feeling your beauty,
I shiver and burn with pleasure beneath my veil.

Younger Sisters
We throw sweet perfume upon her head,
And delicate flowers round her bed.
Ah, would that it were our turn to wed!

Mother
I see my daughter, vaguely, through my tears,
(Ah, lost caresses of my early years!)
I see the bridegroom, King of men i...

As children gather daisies down green ways
Mid butterflies and bees,
To-day across the meadows of past days
I gathered memories.

I stored my heart with harvest of lost hours -
With blossoms of spent years;
Leaves that had known the sun of joy, and hours
Drenched with the rain of tears.

And perfumes that were long ago distilled
From April's pink and white,
Again with all their old enchantment, filled
My spirit with delight.

From out the limbo where lost roses go
The place we may not see,
With all its petals sweet and half-ablow,
One rose returned to me.

Where falls the sunlight chequered by the shade
On meadows of the past,
I gathered blossoms that no sun can fade
No winter wind can blast.

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee -
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!
When I was young? - Ah, woeful When!
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands
How lightly then it flashed along,
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!
Nought cared this body for wind or weather
When Youth and I lived in't together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O the joys! that came down shower-like,
Of Friendshi...

When you and I were young, the days
Were filled with scent of pink and rose,
And full of joy from dawn till close,
From morning's mist till evening's haze.
And when the robin sung his song
The verdant woodland ways along,
We whistled louder than he sung.
And school was joy, and work was sport
For which the hours were all too short,
When you and I were young, my boy,
When you and I were young.

When you and I were young, the woods
Brimmed bravely o'er with every joy
To charm the happy-hearted boy.
The quail turned out her timid broods;
The prickly copse, a hostess fine,
Held high black cups of harmless wine;
And low the laden grape-vine swung
With beads of night-kissed amethyst
Where buzzing lovers held their tryst,
When you and I were ...

        I.

White moons may come, white moons may go,
She sleeps where wild wood blossoms blow,
Nor knows she of the rosy June,
Star-silver flowers o'er her strewn,
The pearly paleness of the moon, -
    Alas! how should she know!


        II.

The downy moth at evening comes
To suck thin honey from wet blooms;
Long, lazy clouds that swimming high
Brood white about the western sky,
Grow red as molten iron and lie
    Above the fragrant glooms.


        III.

Rare odors of the weed and fern,
Dry whisp'rings of dim leaves that turn,
A sound of hidden waters lone
Frothed bubbling down the streaming stone,
And now a wood-dove's plaintive moan
    Drift from the bushy burne.


        IV.
...

        I.


My two-score years and ten are over,
Never again shall youth be mine.
The years are ready-winged for flying,
What crav'st thou still of feast and wine?
Wilt thou still court man's acclamation,
Forgetting what the Lord hath said?
And forfeiting thy weal eternal,
By thine own guilty heart misled?
Shalt thou have never done with folly,
Still fresh and new must it arise?
Oh heed it not, heed not the senses,
But follow God, be meek and wise;
Yea, profit by thy days remaining,
They hurry swiftly to the goal.
Be zealous in the Lord's high service,
And banish falsehood from thy soul.
Use all thy strength, use all thy fervor,
Defy thine own desires, awaken!
Be not afraid when seas are foaming,
And earth to her foundations shak...

1.
Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
Up, - to thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled, -
For now the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven's brow.

2.
We wandered to the Pine Forest
That skirts the Ocean's foam,
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.
The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep
The smile of Heaven lay;
It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of Paradise.

3.
We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tor...

My soul goes out to meet her, and my heart
Flings wide the portals of its love, and yearns
To have her enter its serene retreat.
A poor stray lamb, not wand'ring from the fold,
But all unstudied in the worldling's art,
Turning life's mintage into seeming gold,
Wherewith to purchase love and love's returns;
Unknowing that love's waters, though so sweet,
Lead to some bitter Marah.    So my soul
Goes out to meet her, and it clasps her home,
And seeks to bear her upward to the goal
At which the righteous enter.    From the dome
Of starriest Night two blest Immortals come,
To bear us spheral-ward to God's own mercy-seat.