Then from her throat her light robe she unclasped,
And dropped it downward with a blush that rose
The higher as the garment lower fell.
And dropped it downward with a blush that rose
The higher as the garment lower fell.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v28 - Songs, Hymns, Lyrics
He saw
The plain brown warbler, unabashed. “Not mine »
(He cried) “the error of this fatal flaw.
No bird is this,- it soars beyond my line:
Were it a bird, 'twould answer to my law. ”
EMMA LAZARUS.
## p. 16494 (#194) ##########################################
16494
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
ELLEN TERRY'S BEATRICE
A
WIND of spring, that whirls the feignèd snows
Of blossom petals in the face, and flees;
Elusive, made of mirthful mockeries,
Yet tender with the prescience of the rose;
A strain desired, that through the memory goes,
Too subtle-slender for the voice to seize;
A flame dissembled, only lit to tease,
Whose touch were half a kiss, if one but knows. -
She shows by Leonato's dove-like daughter
A falcon by a prince to be possessed,
Gay-graced with bells that ever chiming are;
In azure of the bright Sicilian water,
A billow that has rapt into its breast
The swayed reflection of a dancing star!
HELEN GRAY CONE.
A VOLUME OF DANTE
I
LIE unread alone; none heedeth me:
Day after day the cobwebs are unswept
From my dim covers. I have lain and slept
In dust and darkness for a century.
An old forgotten volume I. Yet see!
Such mighty words within my heart are kept
That, reading once, great Ariosto wept
In vain despair so impotent to be.
And once with pensive eyes and drooping head,
Musing, Vittoria Colonna came,
And touched my leaves with dreamy finger-tips,
Lifted me up half absently, and read;
Then kissed the page with sudden tender lips,
And sighed, and murmured one beloved
CAROLINE WILDER FELLOWES.
ame.
THE LADY POVERTY
HE Lady Poverty was fair,
But she has lost her looks of late,
With change of times and change of air
Ah, slattern! she neglects her hair,
T"
## p. 16495 (#195) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16495
Her gown, her shoes; she keeps no state,
As once when her pure feet were bare.
Or - almost worse, if worse can be-
She scolds in parlors, dusts, and trims,
Watches and counts. Oh, is this she
Whom Francis met, whose step was free,
Who with Obedience caroled hymns,
In Umbria walked with Chastity ?
Where is her ladyhood ? Not here,
Not among modern kinds of men;
But in the stony fields, where clear
Through the thin trees the skies appear,
In delicate spare soil and fen,
And slender landscape and austere.
Author Unknown.
THE MAIDEN AND THE LILY
A
Lily in my garden grew,
Amid the thyme and clover;
No fairer lily ever blew,
Search all the wide world over.
Its beauty passed into my heart:
I knew 'twas very silly,
But I was then a foolish maid,
And it - a perfect lily.
One day a learnèd man came by,
With years of knowledge laden,
And him I questioned with a sigh,
Like any foolish maiden:-
«Wise sir, please tell me wherein lies-
I know the question's silly –
The something that my art defies,
And makes a perfect lily. ”
He smiled, then bending plucked the flower,
Then tore it, leaf and petal,
And talked to me for full an hour,
And thought the point to settle:-
« Therein it lies," at length he cries;
And I-I know 'twas silly —
Could only weep and say, “But where -
O doctor, where's my lily ? »
JOHN FRASER
## p. 16496 (#196) ##########################################
16496
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE BLACKBIRD'S SONG
M
AGDALEN at Michael's gate
Tirled at the pin;
On Joseph's thorn sang the blackbird,
“Let her in! let her in ! »
«Hast thou seen the wounds ? ” said Michael;
“Know'st thou thy sin ? ”
“It is evening, evening,” sang the blackbird,
« Let her in! let her in! »
« Yes, I have seen the wounds,
And I know my sin. ”
«She knows it well, well, well,” sang the blackbird :
“Let her in! let her in ! »
»
« Thou bringest no offerings,” said Michael,
“Naught save sin. ”
And the blackbird sang, “She is sorry, sorry, sorry,
Let her in! let her in ! »
When he had sung himself to sleep,
And night did begin,
One came and opened Michael's gate,
And Magdalen went in.
HENRY KINGSLEY.
IN SPRINGTIDE
THIS
his is the hour, the day,
The time, the season sweet.
Quick! listen, laggard feet,
Brook not delay:
Love Alies, youth pauses, Maytide will not last;
Forth, forth while yet 'tis time, before the Spring is past.
The Summer's glories shine
From all her garden ground,
With lilies prankt around,
And roses fine;
But the pink blooms or white upon the bursting trees,
Primrose and violet sweet, what charm has June like these?
## p. 16497 (#197) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16497
This is the time of song.
From many a joyous throat,
Mute all the dull year long,
Soars love's clear note:
Summer is dumb, and faint with dust and heat;
This is the mirthful time when every sound is sweet.
Fair day of larger light,
Life's own appointed hour,
Young souls bud forth in white -
The world's a-flower.
Thrill, youthful heart; soar upward, limpid voice:
Blossoming time is come — rejoice, rejoice, rejoice!
Lewis MORRIS.
A SPRING TROUBLE
LL the meadow-lands were gay
Once upon a morn of May;
All the tree of life was dight
With the blossoms of delight.
A
And my whole heart was a-tune
With the songs of long ere noon,-
Dew-bedecked and fresh and free
As the unsunned meadows be.
(
»
«Lo! ) I said unto my spirit,
«Earth and sky thou dost inherit. ”
Forth I wandered, void of care,
In the largesse of the air.
By there came a damosel;
At a look I loved her well:
But she passed and would not stay –
And all the rest has gone away.
And now no fields are fair to see,
Nor any bud on any tree;
Nor have I share in earth or sky -
All for a maiden passing by!
WILLIAM MACDONALD.
XXVIII-1032
## p. 16498 (#198) ##########################################
16498
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE SONG OF SPRING
14
’LL away to the garden,
For winter is over;
The Rose is awake
To the song of her lover!
I will go and discover
The passionate Nightingale singing above her.
From the boughs green and golden
That slope to the river,
A nymph gathers lemons
To give to her lover:
I will go and discover
The shy little Nightingale singing above her.
Near the vineyard, where often
I've spied out a rover,
Sits a damsel who sings
To be heard by her lover:
I will go and discover
The bold little Nightingale singing above her.
GIL VICENTE (Portuguese).
APRIL WEATHER
O
H HUSH, my heart, and take thine ease,
For here is April weather!
The daffodils beneath the trees
Are all a-row together.
The thrush is back with his old note;
The scarlet tulip blowing:
And white — ay, white as my love's throat
The dogwood boughs are growing.
The lilac bush is sweet again;
Down every wind that passes,
Fly Aakes from hedgerow and from lane;
The bees are in the grasses.
And Grief goes out, and Joy comes in,
And Care is but a feather;
And every lad his love can win:
For here is April weather.
LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE.
## p. 16499 (#199) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16499
ASIAN BIRDS
IN
N this May-month, by grace
of Heaven, things shoot apace.
The waiting multitude
of fair boughs in the wood, -
How few days have arrayed
their beauty in green shade!
What have I seen or heard ?
It was the yellow-bird
Sang in the tree: he few
a flame against the blue;
Upward he flashed. Again,
hark! 'tis his heavenly strain.
Another! Hush! Behold,
many, like boats of gold,
From waving branch to branch
their airy bodies launch.
What music is like this,
where each note is a kiss ?
The golden willows lift
their boughs the sun to sift:
Their silken streamers screen
the sky with veils of green,
To make a cage of song,
where feathered lovers throng.
How the delicious notes
come bubbling from their throats!
Full and sweet, how they are shed
like round pearls from a thread!
The motions of their Aight
are wishes of delight.
Hearing their song, I trace
the secret of their grace.
Ah, could I this fair time
so fashion into rhyme,
The poem that I sing
would be the voice of spring.
ROBERT BRIDGES.
## p. 16500 (#200) ##########################################
16500
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
BEFORE AND AFTER THE FLOWER-BIRTH
Before
FIRST VIOLET
LO
O HERE! how warm and dark and still it is:
Sister, lean close to me, that we may kiss.
Here we go rising, rising — but to where ?
SECOND VIOLET
Indeed I cannot tell, nor do I care:
It is so warm and pleasant here. But hark!
What strangest sound was that above the dark ?
FIRST VIOLET
As if our sisters all together sang-
Seemed it not so ?
SECOND VIOLET
More loud than that it rang:
And louder still it rings, and seems more near.
Oh! I am shaken through and through with fear
Now in some deadly grip I seem confined!
Farewell, my sister! Rise, and follow, and find.
FIRST VIOLET
From how far off those last words seemed to fall!
Gone where she will not answer when I call!
How lost ? how gone? Alas! this sound above me-
« Poor little violet, left with none to love thee! ”
And now, it seems, I break against that sound!
What bitter pain is this that binds me round,
This pain I press into! Where have I come ?
After
A CROCUS
Welcome, dear sisters, to our fairy home!
They call this — Garden, and the time is Spring.
Like you I have felt the pain of flowering:
But oh! the wonder and the deep delight
It was to stand here, in the broad sunlight,
And feel the wind flow round me cool and kind;
To hear the singing of the leaves the wind
## p. 16501 (#201) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16501
Goes hurrying through; to see the mighty trees,
Where every day the blossoming buds increase.
At evening, when the shining sun goes in,
The gentler lights we see, and dews begin,
And all is still beneath the quiet sky,
Save sometimes for the wind's low lullaby.
FIRST TREE
Poor little flowers!
SECOND TREE
What would you prate of now?
FIRST TREE
They have not heard: I will keep still. Speak low.
FIRST VIOLET
The trees bend to each other lovingly.
CROCUS
Daily they talk of fairer things to be.
Great talk they make about the coming Rose, –
The very fairest flower, they say, that blows,
Such scent she hath; her leaves are red, they say,
And fold her round in some divine, sweet way.
FIRST VIOLET
Would she were come, that for ourselves we might
Have pleasure in this wonder of delight!
CROCUS
Here comes the laughing, dancing, hurrying rain;
How all the trees laugh at the wind's light strain!
FIRST VIOLET
We are so near the earth, the wind goes by
And hurts us not; but if we stood up high,
Like trees, then should we soon be blown away.
SECOND VIOLET
Nay; were it so, we should be strong as they.
CROCUS
I often think how nice to be a tree:
Why, sometimes in their boughs the stars I see.
## p. 16502 (#202) ##########################################
16502
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
FIRST VIOLET
Have you seen that?
CROCUS
I have, and so shall you;
But hush! I feel the coming of the dew.
[Night. ]
SECOND VIOLET
How bright it is! the trees, how still they are!
CROCUS
I never saw so bright a star,
As that which stands and shines just over us.
FIRST VIOLET (after a pause)
My leaves feel strange and very tremulous.
CROCUS AND SECOND VIOLET TOGETHER
And mine, and mine!
FIRST VIOLET
O warm, kind sun, appear!
CROCUS
I would the stars were gone, and day were here!
[Just Before Dawn. )
FIRST VIOLET
Sisters! No answer, sisters? Why so still?
ONE TREE TO ANOTHER
Poor little violet, calling through the chill
Of this new frost which did her sister slay,
In which she must herself, too, pass away!
Nay, pretty violet, be not so dismayed:
Sleep only, on your sisters sweet, is laid.
FIRST VIOLET
No pleasant wind about the garden goes:
Perchance the wind has gone to bring the Rose.
## p. 16503 (#203) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16503
O sisters! surely now your sleep is done.
I would we had not looked upon the sun.
My leaves are stiff with pain, O cruel night!
And through my root some sharp thing seems to bite.
Ah me! what pain, what coming change is this?
[She dies.
FIRST TREE
So endeth many a violet's dream of bliss.
PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON.
EVENING SONG
T*
He birds have hid, the winds are low,
The brake is awake, the grass aglow:
The bat is the rover,
No bee on the clover,
The day is over,
And evening come.
The heavy beetle spreads her wings,
The toad has the road, the cricket sings:
The bat is the rover,
No bee on the clover,
The day is over,
And evening come.
JOHN VANCE CHENEY.
BENEDICITE
AL
LL Green Things on the earth, bless ye the Lord! )
So sang the choir while ice-cased branches beat
The frosty window-panes, and at our feet
The frozen, tortured sod but mocked the word,
And seemed to cry like some poor soul in pain,
“Lord, suffering and endurance fill my days;
The growing green things will their Maker praise -
The happy green things, growing in warm rain! )
“So God lacks praise while all the fields are white!
I said; then smiled, remembering southward far,
How pampas grass swayed green in summer light.
Nay, God hears always from this swinging star,
Decani and Cantoris, South and North,
Each answering other, praises pouring forth.
ANNA CALLENDER BRACKETT.
## p. 16504 (#204) ##########################################
16504
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
'TWEEN EARTH AND SKY
SEEDS
EEDS with wings, between earth and sky
Fluttering, fying;
Seeds of a lily with blood-red core
Breathing of myrrh and of giroflore:
Where winds drop them, there must they lie
Living or dying.
1
Some to the garden, some to the wall,
Fluttering, falling;
Some to the river, some to earth:
Those that reach the right soil get birth;
None of the rest have lived at all.
Whose voice is calling ? -
“Here is soil for winged seeds that near,
Fluttering, fearing,
Where they shall root and bourgeon and spread.
Lacking the heart-room the song lies dead:
Half is the song that reaches the ear,
Half is the hearing. ”
AUGUSTA WEBSTER.
SONG OF SUMMER
From (Summer's Last Will and Testament)
F
AIR Summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore;
So fair a summer look for never more:
All good things vanish less than in a day,-
Peace, plenty, pleasure suddenly decay.
Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year,-
The earth is hell when thou leav'st to appear.
What! shall those flowers that decked thy garland erst,
Upon thy grave be wastefully dispersed ?
O trees, consume your sap in sorrow's source!
Streams, turn to tears your tributary course!
Go not yet hence, bright soul of the sad year, -
The earth is hell when thou leav'st to appear.
THOMAS NASH.
## p. 16505 (#205) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16505
A SUMMER SONG
SUM
(THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
UMMER-HUED
Is the wood,
Heath and field; debonair
Now is seen
White, brown, green,
Blue, red, yellow, everywhere.
Everything
You see spring
Joyously, in full delight;
He whose pains
Dear love deigns
With her favor to requite-
Ah, happy wight!
Whosoe'er
Knows love's care,
Free from care well may be;
Year by year
Brightness clear
Of the May shall he see.
Blithe and gay
All the play
Of glad love shall he fulfill;
Joyous living
Is in the giving
Of high love to whom she will,
Rich in joys still.
He's a churl
Whom a girl
Lovingly shall embrace,
Who'll not cry
“Blest am I » -
Let none such show his face.
This will cure you
(I assure you)
Of all sorrows, all alarms;
What alloy
In his joy
On whom white and pretty arms
Bestow their charms?
ULRICH VON LIECHTENSTEIN.
Translation of Edward T. McLaughlin.
## p. 16506 (#206) ##########################################
16506
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE BATHER
WRX
ARM from her waist her girdle she unwound,
And cast it down on the insensate turf;
Then copse and cove and deep-secluded vale
She scrutinized with keen though timid eyes,
And stood with ear intent to catch each stir
Of leaf or twig or bird-wing rustling there.
Her startled heart beat quicker even to hear
The wild bee woo the blossom with a hymn,
Or hidden insect break its lance of sound
Against the obdurate silence. Then she smiled,
At her own fears amused, and knew herself
God's only image by that hidden shore;
Out from its bonds her wondrous hair she loosed, -
Hair glittering like spun glass, and bright as though
Shot full of golden arrows. Down below
Her supple waist the soft and shimmering coils
Rolled in their bright abundance, goldener
Than was the golden wonder Jason sought.
Her fair hands then, like white doves in a net,
A moment fluttered 'mid the shining threads,
As with a dexterous touch she higher laid
The gleaming tresses on her shapely head,
Beyond the reach of rudely amorous waves.
Then from her throat her light robe she unclasped,
And dropped it downward with a blush that rose
The higher as the garment lower fell.
Then cast she off the sandals from her feet,
And paused upon the brink of that blue lake:
A sight too fair for either gods or men;
An Eve untempted in her Paradise.
The waters into which her young eyes looked
Gave back her image with so true a truth,
She blushed to look; but blushing looked again,
As maidens to their mirrors oft return
With bashful boldness, once again to gaze
Upon the crystal page that renders back
Themselves unto themselves, until their eyes
Confess their love for their own loveliness.
Her rounded cheeks, in each of which had grown,
With sudden blossoming, a fresh red rose,
## p. 16507 (#207) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16507
She hid an instant in her dimpled hands;
Then met her pink palms up above her head,
And whelmed her white shape in the welcoming wave.
Around each lithesome limb the waters twined,
And with their lucent raiment robed her form;
And as her hesitating bosom sunk
To the caresses of bewildered waves,
The foamy pearls from their own foreheads gave
For her fair brow, and showered in her hair
The evanescent diamonds of the deep.
Thus dallying with the circumfluent tide,
Her loveliness half hidden, half revealed,
An Undine with a soul, she plunged and rose,
Whilst the white graces of her rounded arms
She braided with the blue of wandering waves,
And saw the shoulders of the billows yield
Before the even strokes of her small hands,
And laughed to see, and held her crimson mouth
Above the crest of each advancing surge
Like a red blossom pendent o'er a pool;
Till, done with the invigorating play,
Once more she gained the bank, and once again
Saw her twin image in the waters born.
1
2
.
From the translucent wave each beauty grew
To strange perfection. Never statue wrought
By cunning art to fullness of all grace,
And kissed to life by love, could fairer seem
Than she who stood upon that grassy slope
So fresh, so human, so immaculate!
Out from the dusky cloisters of the wood
The nun-like winds stole with a saintly step,
And dried the bright drops from her panting form,
As she with hurried hands once more let down
The golden drapery of her glorious hair,
That fell about her like some royal cloak
Dropped from the sunset's rare and radiant loom.
MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND.
## p. 16508 (#208) ##########################################
16508
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE HAYMAKERS' SONG
HER
ERE's to him that grows it,
Drink, lads, drink!
That lays it in and mows it,
Clink, jugs, clink!
To him that mows and makes it,
That scatters it and shakes it,
That turns and teds and rakes it,
Clink, jugs, clink!
Now here's to him that stacks it,
Drink, lads, drink!
That thrashes and that tacks it,
Clink, jugs, clink!
That cuts it out for eating,
When March-dropped lambs are bleating,
And the slate-blue clouds are sleeting,
Drink, lads, drink!
And here's to thane and yeoman,
Drink, lads, drink!
To horseman and to bowman,
Clink, jugs, clink!
To lofty and to low man,
Who bears a grudge to no man,
But finches from no foeman,
Drink, lads, drink!
ALFRED AUSTIN.
SEPTEMBER
B.
IRDS that were gray in the green are black in the yellow.
Here where the green remains, rocks one little fellow.
Quaker in gray, do you know that the green is going ?
More than that — do you know that the yellow is showing ?
Singer of songs, do you know that your youth is flying ?
That age will soon at the lock of your life be prying?
Lover of life, do you know that the brown is going ?
More than that — do you know that the gray is showing ?
S. FRANCES HARRISON (“Seranus”).
## p. 16509 (#209) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16509
INDIAN SUMMER
LLC
INGER, O day!
Let not thy purple haze
Fade utterly away.
The Indian summer lays
Her tender touch upon the emerald hills.
Exquisite thrills
Of delicate gladness fill the blue-veined air.
More restful even than rest,
The passionate sweetness that is everywhere.
Soft splendors in the west
Touch with the charm of coming changefulness
The yielding hills.
Oh linger, day!
Let not the dear
Delicious languor of thy dreamfulness
Vanish away!
Serene and clear,
The brooding stillness of the delicate air,
Dreamier than the dreamiest: depths of sleep,
Falls softly everywhere.
Still let me keep
One little hour longer tryst with thee,
O day of days!
Lean down on me,
In tender beauty of thy amethyst haze.
Upon the vine,
Rich clinging clusters of the ripening grape
Hang silent in the sun,
But in each one
Beats with full throb the quickening purple wine,
Whose pulse shall round the perfect fruit to shape.
Too dreamy even to dream,
I hear the murmuring bee and gliding stream;
The singing silence of the afternoon,
Lulling my yielding senses till they swoon
Into still deeper rest:
While soul released from sense,
Passionate and intense,
With quick exultant quiver in its wings,
Prophetic longing for diviner things,
Escapes the unthinking breast;
## p. 16510 (#210) ##########################################
16510
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Pierces rejoicing through the shining mist,
But shrinks before the keen, cold ether, kissed
By burning stars; delirious foretaste
Of joys the soul — too eager in its haste
To grasp ere won by the diviner right
Of birth through death — is far too weak to bear.
Bathed in earth's lesser light,
Slipping down slowly through the shining air,
Once more it steals into the dreaming breast,
Praying again to be its patient guest.
And as my senses wake,
The beautiful glad soul again to take,
The twilight falls.
A lonely wood-thrush calls
The day away.
«Where hast thou been to-day,
O soul of mine ? » I wondering question her.
She will not answer while the light winds stir
And rustle near to hear what she may say.
Thou needst not linger, day!
My soul and I
Would hold high converse of diviner things.
Unfold thy wings;
Wrap softly round thyself thy delicate haze,
And gliding down the slowly darkening ways,
Vanish away!
ALICE WELLINGTON Rollins.
INDIAN SUMMER
T"
HESE are the days when birds come back,-
A very few, a bird or two, -
To take a backward look.
These are the days when skies put on
The old, old sophistries of June, -
A blue-and-gold mistake.
Oh! fraud that almost cheats the bee,
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief;
## p. 16511 (#211) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16511
Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf!
Oh, sacrament of summer days!
Oh, last communion in the haze!
Permit a child to join -
Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine.
EMILY DICKINSON,
NOVEMBER IN THE SOUTH
THIS
his livelong day I listen to the fall
Of hickory-nuts and acorns to the ground,
The croak of rain-crows and the blue-jay's call,
The woodman's axe that hews with muffled sound.
.
And like a spendthrift in a threadbare coat
That still retains a dash of crimson hue,
An old woodpecker chatters forth a note
About the better summer days he knew.
Across the road a ruined cabin stands,
With ragweeds and with thistles at its door,
While withered cypress-vines hang tattered strands
About its falling roof and rotting floor.
In yonder forest nook no sound is heard,
Save when the walnuts patter on the earth,
Or when by winds the hectic leaves are stirred
To dance like witches in their maniac mirth.
Down in the orchard hang the golden pears,
Half honeycombed by yellowhammer beaks ;
Near by, a dwarfed and twisted apple bears
Its fruit, brown-red as Amazonian cheeks.
The lonesome landscape seems as if it yearned
Like our own aching hearts, when first we knew
The one love of our life was not returned,
Or first we found an old-time friend untrue.
## p. 16512 (#212) ##########################################
16512
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
At last the night comes, and the broad white moon
Is welcomed by the owl with frenzied glee;
The fat opossum, like a satyr, soon
Blinks at its light from yon persimmon-tree.
The raccoon starts to hear long-dreaded sounds
Amid his scattered spoils of ripened corn,
The cry of negroes and the yelp of hounds,
The wild rude pealing of a hunter's horn.
At last a gray mist covers all the land
Until we seem to wander in a cloud,
Far, far away upon some elfin strand
Where sorrow drapes us in a mildewed shroud.
No voice is heard in field or forest nigh
To break the desolation of the spell,
Save one sad mocking-bird in boughs near by,
Who sings like Tasso in his madman's cell;
While one magnolia blossom, ghostly white,
Like high-born Leonora, lingering there,
Haughty and splendid in the lonesome night,
Is pale with passion in her dumb despair.
WALTER MALONE.
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
'T
WAS the night before Christmas, when all through the
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse: [house
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced through their heads;
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,–
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon, on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below;
## p. 16513 (#213) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16513
When what to my wondering eyes should api ear
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
«Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer! now, Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Dunder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!
Now dash away, dash away, dash away all! »
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had fung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack
His eyes how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook, when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump,- a right jolly old elf, -
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spake not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle;
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night! ”
CLEMENT CLARKE MOORE.
XXVIII-1033
## p. 16514 (#214) ##########################################
16514
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE FROST
THE
HE Frost looked forth, one still, clear night,
And he said, “Now I shall be out of sight;
So through the valley and over the height
In silence I'll take my way.
I will not go like that blustering train,
The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain,
Who make so much bustle and noise in vain,
But I'll be as busy. as they! ”
Then he went to the mountain, and powdered its crest;
He climbed up the trees, and their boughs he dressed
With diamonds and pearls; and over the breast
Of the quivering lake he spread
A coat of mail, that it need not fear
The downward point of many a spear
That he hung on its margin, far and near,
Where a rock could reach its head.
He went to the windows of those who slept,
And over the pane like a fairy crept:
Wherever he breathed, wherever he stepped,
By the light of the moon were seen
Most beautiful things. There were flowers and trees,
There were bevies of birds and swarms of bees,
There were cities, thrones, temples, and towers, and these
All pictured in silver sheen!
(
But he did one thing that was hardly fair:
He peeped in the cupboard, and finding there
That all had forgotten for him to prepare,-
“Now, just to set them a-thinking,
I'll bite this basket of fruit,” said he;
« This costly pitcher I'll burst in three;
And the glass of water they've left for me
Shall (tchick! ) to tell them I'm drinking. ”
HANNAH FRANCES GOULD.
## p. 16515 (#215) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16515
1
THE ROOT'S DREAM
F
ROM the dark earth cool and fragrant,
A gnarled unlovely root
Sent forth in the rippling sunshine
A slender gold-green shoot.
The shoot in the languid breezes
Was soon by a pale bloom bent;
A sense of its frail white beauty
The sun to the black root sent.
1
The root was thrilled by a vision,
A vision of peace supreme ;-
The fragile star of a blossom
Was the black root's dainty dream.
1
R. K. MUNKITTRICK.
#
WILD HONEY
3
W***
HERE hints of racy sap and gum
Out of the old dark forest come;
Where birds their beaks like hammers wield,
And pith is pierced, and bark is peeled;
Where the green walnut's outer rind
Gives precious bitterness to the wind;-
There lurks the sweet creative power,
As lurks the honey in the flower.
In winter's bud that bursts in spring,
In nut of autumn's ripening,
In acrid bulb beneath the mold,
Sleeps the elixir, strong and old,
E
That Rosicrucians sought in vain,-
Life that renews itself again!
What bottled perfume is so good
As fragrance of split tulip-wood ?
What fabled drink of god or Muse
Was rich as purple mulberry-juice ?
## p. 16516 (#216) ##########################################
16516
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
And what school-polished gem of thought
Is like the rune from Nature caught ?
He is a poet strong and true
Who loves wild thyme and honey-dew;
And like a brown bee works and sings
With morning freshness on his wings,
And a gold burden on his thighs, -
The pollen-dust of centuries!
MAURICE THOMPSON.
THE WAKING OF THE LARK
O
BONNIE bird that in the brake, exultant, does prepare thee -
As poets do whose thoughts are true — for wings that will
upbear thee,
Oh, tell me, tell me, bonnie bird,
Canst thou not pipe of hope deferred ?
Or canst thou sing of naught but spring among the golden meadows?
Methinks a bard (and thou art one) should suit his song to sorrow;
And tell of pain, as well as gain, that waits us on the morrow:
But thou art not a prophet, thou,
If naught but joy can touch thee now;
If, in thy heart, thou hast no vow that speaks of Nature's anguish.
Oh, I have held my sorrows dear, and felt, though poor and slighted,
The songs we love are those we hear when love is unrequited.
But thou art still the slave of dawn,
And canst not sing till night be gone,
Till o'er the pathway of the fawn the sunbeams shine and quiver.
Thou art the minion of the sun that rises in his splendor,
And canst not spare for Dian fair the songs that should attend her:
The moon, so sad and silver pale,
Is mistress of the nightingale;
And thou wilt sing on hill and dale no ditties in the darkness.
For queen and king thou wilt not spare one note of thine outpouring;
And thou'rt as free as breezes be on Nature's velvet flooring :
The daisy, with its hood undone,
The grass, the sunlight, and the sun
These are the joys, thou holy one, that pay thee for thy singing.
## p. 16517 (#217) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16517
Oh, hush! Oh, hush! how wild a gush of rapture in the distance -
A roll of rhymes, a toll of chimes, a cry for love's assistance;
A sound that wells from happy throats,
A flood of song where beauty foats,
And where our thoughts, like golden boats, do seem to cross a river.
This is the advent of the lark,– the priest in gray apparel, -
Who doth prepare to trill in air his sinless summer carol;
This is the prelude to the lay
The birds did sing in Cæsar's day,
And will again, for aye and aye, in praise of God's creation.
O dainty thing, on wonder's wing, by life and love elated,
Oh, sing aloud from cloud to cloud, till day be consecrated;
Till from the gateways of the morn,
The sun, with all his light unshorn,
His robes of darkness round him torn, doth scale the lofty heavens!
ERIC MACKAY.
TO THE LARK
(T'R EHEDYDD)
S
ENTINEL of the morning light!
Reveler of the spring!
How sweetly, nobly wild thy flight,
Thy boundless journeying:
Far from thy brethren of the woods, alone,
A hermit chorister before God's throne !
Oh! wilt thou climb yon heavens for me,
Yon rampart's starry height,
Thou interlude of melody
'Twixt darkness and the light,
And seek with heaven's first dawn upon thy crest.
My lady-love, the moonbeam of the west ?
No woodland caroler art thou;
Far from the archer's eye,
Thy course is o'er the mountain's brow,
Thy music in the sky:
Then fearless float thy path of cloud along,
Thou earthly denizen of angel song.
DAFYDD AP GWILYM.
(Welsh, Fourteenth Century. )
## p. 16518 (#218) ##########################################
16518
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
MEADOW-LARKS
S)
WEET, sweet, sweet! Oh happy that I am!
(Listen to the meadow-larks, across the fields that sing ! )
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O subtle breath of balm,
O winds that blow, O buds that grow, O rapture of the
spring!
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O skies, serene and blue,
That shut the velvet pastures in, that fold the mountain's
crest!
Sweet, sweet, sweet! What of the clouds ye knew?
The vessels ride a golden tide, upon a sea at rest.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! Who prates of care and pain ?
Who says that life is sorrowful? O life so glad, so fleet!
Ah! he who lives the noblest life finds life the noblest gain,
The tears of pain a tender rain to make its waters sweet.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy world that is!
Dear heart, I hear across the fields my mateling pipe and call.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! Oworld so full of bliss, –
For life is love, the world is love, and love is over all!
INA D. COOLBRITH.
MORNING SONG
T"
He lark now leaves his watery nest,
And climbing shakes his dewy wings:
He takes this window for the east;
And to implore your light, he sings.
Awake, awake! the morn will never rise,
Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.
The merchant bows unto the seaman's star,
The plowman from the sun his season takes,
But still the lover wonders what they are
Who look for day before his mistress wakes. ·
Awake, awake, break through your veils of lawn,
Then draw your curtains, and begin the dawn.
SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT.
## p. 16519 (#219) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16519
THE O’LINCON FAMILY
A
FLOCK of merry singing-birds was sporting in the grove;
Some were warbling cheerily, and some were making love:
There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,-
A livelier set was never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle, -
Crying, Phew, shew, Wadolincon, see, see, Bobolincon,
Down among the tickletops, hiding in the buttercups!
I know the saucy chap, I see his shining cap
Bobbing in the clover there,- see, see, see! ”
Up flies Bobolincon, perching on an apple-tree,
Startled by his rival's song, quickened by his raillery;
Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curvetting in the air,
And merrily he turns about, and warns him to beware!
« 'Tis you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O!
But wait a week, till flowers are cheery,— wait a week, and ere you
marry,
Be sure of a house wherein to tarry!
Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait! »
Every one's a funny fellow; every one's a little mellow:
Follow, follow, follow, follow, o'er the hill and in the hollow!
Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly;
They cross and turn, and in and out, and down in the middle, and
wheel about,-
With a
Phew, shew, Wadolincon! listen to me, Bobolincon!
Happy's the wooing that's speedily doing, that's speedily doing,
That's merry and over with the bloom of the clover!
Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me! »
Oh what a happy life they lead, over the hill and in the mead!
The plain brown warbler, unabashed. “Not mine »
(He cried) “the error of this fatal flaw.
No bird is this,- it soars beyond my line:
Were it a bird, 'twould answer to my law. ”
EMMA LAZARUS.
## p. 16494 (#194) ##########################################
16494
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
ELLEN TERRY'S BEATRICE
A
WIND of spring, that whirls the feignèd snows
Of blossom petals in the face, and flees;
Elusive, made of mirthful mockeries,
Yet tender with the prescience of the rose;
A strain desired, that through the memory goes,
Too subtle-slender for the voice to seize;
A flame dissembled, only lit to tease,
Whose touch were half a kiss, if one but knows. -
She shows by Leonato's dove-like daughter
A falcon by a prince to be possessed,
Gay-graced with bells that ever chiming are;
In azure of the bright Sicilian water,
A billow that has rapt into its breast
The swayed reflection of a dancing star!
HELEN GRAY CONE.
A VOLUME OF DANTE
I
LIE unread alone; none heedeth me:
Day after day the cobwebs are unswept
From my dim covers. I have lain and slept
In dust and darkness for a century.
An old forgotten volume I. Yet see!
Such mighty words within my heart are kept
That, reading once, great Ariosto wept
In vain despair so impotent to be.
And once with pensive eyes and drooping head,
Musing, Vittoria Colonna came,
And touched my leaves with dreamy finger-tips,
Lifted me up half absently, and read;
Then kissed the page with sudden tender lips,
And sighed, and murmured one beloved
CAROLINE WILDER FELLOWES.
ame.
THE LADY POVERTY
HE Lady Poverty was fair,
But she has lost her looks of late,
With change of times and change of air
Ah, slattern! she neglects her hair,
T"
## p. 16495 (#195) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16495
Her gown, her shoes; she keeps no state,
As once when her pure feet were bare.
Or - almost worse, if worse can be-
She scolds in parlors, dusts, and trims,
Watches and counts. Oh, is this she
Whom Francis met, whose step was free,
Who with Obedience caroled hymns,
In Umbria walked with Chastity ?
Where is her ladyhood ? Not here,
Not among modern kinds of men;
But in the stony fields, where clear
Through the thin trees the skies appear,
In delicate spare soil and fen,
And slender landscape and austere.
Author Unknown.
THE MAIDEN AND THE LILY
A
Lily in my garden grew,
Amid the thyme and clover;
No fairer lily ever blew,
Search all the wide world over.
Its beauty passed into my heart:
I knew 'twas very silly,
But I was then a foolish maid,
And it - a perfect lily.
One day a learnèd man came by,
With years of knowledge laden,
And him I questioned with a sigh,
Like any foolish maiden:-
«Wise sir, please tell me wherein lies-
I know the question's silly –
The something that my art defies,
And makes a perfect lily. ”
He smiled, then bending plucked the flower,
Then tore it, leaf and petal,
And talked to me for full an hour,
And thought the point to settle:-
« Therein it lies," at length he cries;
And I-I know 'twas silly —
Could only weep and say, “But where -
O doctor, where's my lily ? »
JOHN FRASER
## p. 16496 (#196) ##########################################
16496
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE BLACKBIRD'S SONG
M
AGDALEN at Michael's gate
Tirled at the pin;
On Joseph's thorn sang the blackbird,
“Let her in! let her in ! »
«Hast thou seen the wounds ? ” said Michael;
“Know'st thou thy sin ? ”
“It is evening, evening,” sang the blackbird,
« Let her in! let her in! »
« Yes, I have seen the wounds,
And I know my sin. ”
«She knows it well, well, well,” sang the blackbird :
“Let her in! let her in ! »
»
« Thou bringest no offerings,” said Michael,
“Naught save sin. ”
And the blackbird sang, “She is sorry, sorry, sorry,
Let her in! let her in ! »
When he had sung himself to sleep,
And night did begin,
One came and opened Michael's gate,
And Magdalen went in.
HENRY KINGSLEY.
IN SPRINGTIDE
THIS
his is the hour, the day,
The time, the season sweet.
Quick! listen, laggard feet,
Brook not delay:
Love Alies, youth pauses, Maytide will not last;
Forth, forth while yet 'tis time, before the Spring is past.
The Summer's glories shine
From all her garden ground,
With lilies prankt around,
And roses fine;
But the pink blooms or white upon the bursting trees,
Primrose and violet sweet, what charm has June like these?
## p. 16497 (#197) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16497
This is the time of song.
From many a joyous throat,
Mute all the dull year long,
Soars love's clear note:
Summer is dumb, and faint with dust and heat;
This is the mirthful time when every sound is sweet.
Fair day of larger light,
Life's own appointed hour,
Young souls bud forth in white -
The world's a-flower.
Thrill, youthful heart; soar upward, limpid voice:
Blossoming time is come — rejoice, rejoice, rejoice!
Lewis MORRIS.
A SPRING TROUBLE
LL the meadow-lands were gay
Once upon a morn of May;
All the tree of life was dight
With the blossoms of delight.
A
And my whole heart was a-tune
With the songs of long ere noon,-
Dew-bedecked and fresh and free
As the unsunned meadows be.
(
»
«Lo! ) I said unto my spirit,
«Earth and sky thou dost inherit. ”
Forth I wandered, void of care,
In the largesse of the air.
By there came a damosel;
At a look I loved her well:
But she passed and would not stay –
And all the rest has gone away.
And now no fields are fair to see,
Nor any bud on any tree;
Nor have I share in earth or sky -
All for a maiden passing by!
WILLIAM MACDONALD.
XXVIII-1032
## p. 16498 (#198) ##########################################
16498
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE SONG OF SPRING
14
’LL away to the garden,
For winter is over;
The Rose is awake
To the song of her lover!
I will go and discover
The passionate Nightingale singing above her.
From the boughs green and golden
That slope to the river,
A nymph gathers lemons
To give to her lover:
I will go and discover
The shy little Nightingale singing above her.
Near the vineyard, where often
I've spied out a rover,
Sits a damsel who sings
To be heard by her lover:
I will go and discover
The bold little Nightingale singing above her.
GIL VICENTE (Portuguese).
APRIL WEATHER
O
H HUSH, my heart, and take thine ease,
For here is April weather!
The daffodils beneath the trees
Are all a-row together.
The thrush is back with his old note;
The scarlet tulip blowing:
And white — ay, white as my love's throat
The dogwood boughs are growing.
The lilac bush is sweet again;
Down every wind that passes,
Fly Aakes from hedgerow and from lane;
The bees are in the grasses.
And Grief goes out, and Joy comes in,
And Care is but a feather;
And every lad his love can win:
For here is April weather.
LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE.
## p. 16499 (#199) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16499
ASIAN BIRDS
IN
N this May-month, by grace
of Heaven, things shoot apace.
The waiting multitude
of fair boughs in the wood, -
How few days have arrayed
their beauty in green shade!
What have I seen or heard ?
It was the yellow-bird
Sang in the tree: he few
a flame against the blue;
Upward he flashed. Again,
hark! 'tis his heavenly strain.
Another! Hush! Behold,
many, like boats of gold,
From waving branch to branch
their airy bodies launch.
What music is like this,
where each note is a kiss ?
The golden willows lift
their boughs the sun to sift:
Their silken streamers screen
the sky with veils of green,
To make a cage of song,
where feathered lovers throng.
How the delicious notes
come bubbling from their throats!
Full and sweet, how they are shed
like round pearls from a thread!
The motions of their Aight
are wishes of delight.
Hearing their song, I trace
the secret of their grace.
Ah, could I this fair time
so fashion into rhyme,
The poem that I sing
would be the voice of spring.
ROBERT BRIDGES.
## p. 16500 (#200) ##########################################
16500
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
BEFORE AND AFTER THE FLOWER-BIRTH
Before
FIRST VIOLET
LO
O HERE! how warm and dark and still it is:
Sister, lean close to me, that we may kiss.
Here we go rising, rising — but to where ?
SECOND VIOLET
Indeed I cannot tell, nor do I care:
It is so warm and pleasant here. But hark!
What strangest sound was that above the dark ?
FIRST VIOLET
As if our sisters all together sang-
Seemed it not so ?
SECOND VIOLET
More loud than that it rang:
And louder still it rings, and seems more near.
Oh! I am shaken through and through with fear
Now in some deadly grip I seem confined!
Farewell, my sister! Rise, and follow, and find.
FIRST VIOLET
From how far off those last words seemed to fall!
Gone where she will not answer when I call!
How lost ? how gone? Alas! this sound above me-
« Poor little violet, left with none to love thee! ”
And now, it seems, I break against that sound!
What bitter pain is this that binds me round,
This pain I press into! Where have I come ?
After
A CROCUS
Welcome, dear sisters, to our fairy home!
They call this — Garden, and the time is Spring.
Like you I have felt the pain of flowering:
But oh! the wonder and the deep delight
It was to stand here, in the broad sunlight,
And feel the wind flow round me cool and kind;
To hear the singing of the leaves the wind
## p. 16501 (#201) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16501
Goes hurrying through; to see the mighty trees,
Where every day the blossoming buds increase.
At evening, when the shining sun goes in,
The gentler lights we see, and dews begin,
And all is still beneath the quiet sky,
Save sometimes for the wind's low lullaby.
FIRST TREE
Poor little flowers!
SECOND TREE
What would you prate of now?
FIRST TREE
They have not heard: I will keep still. Speak low.
FIRST VIOLET
The trees bend to each other lovingly.
CROCUS
Daily they talk of fairer things to be.
Great talk they make about the coming Rose, –
The very fairest flower, they say, that blows,
Such scent she hath; her leaves are red, they say,
And fold her round in some divine, sweet way.
FIRST VIOLET
Would she were come, that for ourselves we might
Have pleasure in this wonder of delight!
CROCUS
Here comes the laughing, dancing, hurrying rain;
How all the trees laugh at the wind's light strain!
FIRST VIOLET
We are so near the earth, the wind goes by
And hurts us not; but if we stood up high,
Like trees, then should we soon be blown away.
SECOND VIOLET
Nay; were it so, we should be strong as they.
CROCUS
I often think how nice to be a tree:
Why, sometimes in their boughs the stars I see.
## p. 16502 (#202) ##########################################
16502
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
FIRST VIOLET
Have you seen that?
CROCUS
I have, and so shall you;
But hush! I feel the coming of the dew.
[Night. ]
SECOND VIOLET
How bright it is! the trees, how still they are!
CROCUS
I never saw so bright a star,
As that which stands and shines just over us.
FIRST VIOLET (after a pause)
My leaves feel strange and very tremulous.
CROCUS AND SECOND VIOLET TOGETHER
And mine, and mine!
FIRST VIOLET
O warm, kind sun, appear!
CROCUS
I would the stars were gone, and day were here!
[Just Before Dawn. )
FIRST VIOLET
Sisters! No answer, sisters? Why so still?
ONE TREE TO ANOTHER
Poor little violet, calling through the chill
Of this new frost which did her sister slay,
In which she must herself, too, pass away!
Nay, pretty violet, be not so dismayed:
Sleep only, on your sisters sweet, is laid.
FIRST VIOLET
No pleasant wind about the garden goes:
Perchance the wind has gone to bring the Rose.
## p. 16503 (#203) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16503
O sisters! surely now your sleep is done.
I would we had not looked upon the sun.
My leaves are stiff with pain, O cruel night!
And through my root some sharp thing seems to bite.
Ah me! what pain, what coming change is this?
[She dies.
FIRST TREE
So endeth many a violet's dream of bliss.
PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON.
EVENING SONG
T*
He birds have hid, the winds are low,
The brake is awake, the grass aglow:
The bat is the rover,
No bee on the clover,
The day is over,
And evening come.
The heavy beetle spreads her wings,
The toad has the road, the cricket sings:
The bat is the rover,
No bee on the clover,
The day is over,
And evening come.
JOHN VANCE CHENEY.
BENEDICITE
AL
LL Green Things on the earth, bless ye the Lord! )
So sang the choir while ice-cased branches beat
The frosty window-panes, and at our feet
The frozen, tortured sod but mocked the word,
And seemed to cry like some poor soul in pain,
“Lord, suffering and endurance fill my days;
The growing green things will their Maker praise -
The happy green things, growing in warm rain! )
“So God lacks praise while all the fields are white!
I said; then smiled, remembering southward far,
How pampas grass swayed green in summer light.
Nay, God hears always from this swinging star,
Decani and Cantoris, South and North,
Each answering other, praises pouring forth.
ANNA CALLENDER BRACKETT.
## p. 16504 (#204) ##########################################
16504
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
'TWEEN EARTH AND SKY
SEEDS
EEDS with wings, between earth and sky
Fluttering, fying;
Seeds of a lily with blood-red core
Breathing of myrrh and of giroflore:
Where winds drop them, there must they lie
Living or dying.
1
Some to the garden, some to the wall,
Fluttering, falling;
Some to the river, some to earth:
Those that reach the right soil get birth;
None of the rest have lived at all.
Whose voice is calling ? -
“Here is soil for winged seeds that near,
Fluttering, fearing,
Where they shall root and bourgeon and spread.
Lacking the heart-room the song lies dead:
Half is the song that reaches the ear,
Half is the hearing. ”
AUGUSTA WEBSTER.
SONG OF SUMMER
From (Summer's Last Will and Testament)
F
AIR Summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore;
So fair a summer look for never more:
All good things vanish less than in a day,-
Peace, plenty, pleasure suddenly decay.
Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year,-
The earth is hell when thou leav'st to appear.
What! shall those flowers that decked thy garland erst,
Upon thy grave be wastefully dispersed ?
O trees, consume your sap in sorrow's source!
Streams, turn to tears your tributary course!
Go not yet hence, bright soul of the sad year, -
The earth is hell when thou leav'st to appear.
THOMAS NASH.
## p. 16505 (#205) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16505
A SUMMER SONG
SUM
(THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
UMMER-HUED
Is the wood,
Heath and field; debonair
Now is seen
White, brown, green,
Blue, red, yellow, everywhere.
Everything
You see spring
Joyously, in full delight;
He whose pains
Dear love deigns
With her favor to requite-
Ah, happy wight!
Whosoe'er
Knows love's care,
Free from care well may be;
Year by year
Brightness clear
Of the May shall he see.
Blithe and gay
All the play
Of glad love shall he fulfill;
Joyous living
Is in the giving
Of high love to whom she will,
Rich in joys still.
He's a churl
Whom a girl
Lovingly shall embrace,
Who'll not cry
“Blest am I » -
Let none such show his face.
This will cure you
(I assure you)
Of all sorrows, all alarms;
What alloy
In his joy
On whom white and pretty arms
Bestow their charms?
ULRICH VON LIECHTENSTEIN.
Translation of Edward T. McLaughlin.
## p. 16506 (#206) ##########################################
16506
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE BATHER
WRX
ARM from her waist her girdle she unwound,
And cast it down on the insensate turf;
Then copse and cove and deep-secluded vale
She scrutinized with keen though timid eyes,
And stood with ear intent to catch each stir
Of leaf or twig or bird-wing rustling there.
Her startled heart beat quicker even to hear
The wild bee woo the blossom with a hymn,
Or hidden insect break its lance of sound
Against the obdurate silence. Then she smiled,
At her own fears amused, and knew herself
God's only image by that hidden shore;
Out from its bonds her wondrous hair she loosed, -
Hair glittering like spun glass, and bright as though
Shot full of golden arrows. Down below
Her supple waist the soft and shimmering coils
Rolled in their bright abundance, goldener
Than was the golden wonder Jason sought.
Her fair hands then, like white doves in a net,
A moment fluttered 'mid the shining threads,
As with a dexterous touch she higher laid
The gleaming tresses on her shapely head,
Beyond the reach of rudely amorous waves.
Then from her throat her light robe she unclasped,
And dropped it downward with a blush that rose
The higher as the garment lower fell.
Then cast she off the sandals from her feet,
And paused upon the brink of that blue lake:
A sight too fair for either gods or men;
An Eve untempted in her Paradise.
The waters into which her young eyes looked
Gave back her image with so true a truth,
She blushed to look; but blushing looked again,
As maidens to their mirrors oft return
With bashful boldness, once again to gaze
Upon the crystal page that renders back
Themselves unto themselves, until their eyes
Confess their love for their own loveliness.
Her rounded cheeks, in each of which had grown,
With sudden blossoming, a fresh red rose,
## p. 16507 (#207) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16507
She hid an instant in her dimpled hands;
Then met her pink palms up above her head,
And whelmed her white shape in the welcoming wave.
Around each lithesome limb the waters twined,
And with their lucent raiment robed her form;
And as her hesitating bosom sunk
To the caresses of bewildered waves,
The foamy pearls from their own foreheads gave
For her fair brow, and showered in her hair
The evanescent diamonds of the deep.
Thus dallying with the circumfluent tide,
Her loveliness half hidden, half revealed,
An Undine with a soul, she plunged and rose,
Whilst the white graces of her rounded arms
She braided with the blue of wandering waves,
And saw the shoulders of the billows yield
Before the even strokes of her small hands,
And laughed to see, and held her crimson mouth
Above the crest of each advancing surge
Like a red blossom pendent o'er a pool;
Till, done with the invigorating play,
Once more she gained the bank, and once again
Saw her twin image in the waters born.
1
2
.
From the translucent wave each beauty grew
To strange perfection. Never statue wrought
By cunning art to fullness of all grace,
And kissed to life by love, could fairer seem
Than she who stood upon that grassy slope
So fresh, so human, so immaculate!
Out from the dusky cloisters of the wood
The nun-like winds stole with a saintly step,
And dried the bright drops from her panting form,
As she with hurried hands once more let down
The golden drapery of her glorious hair,
That fell about her like some royal cloak
Dropped from the sunset's rare and radiant loom.
MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND.
## p. 16508 (#208) ##########################################
16508
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE HAYMAKERS' SONG
HER
ERE's to him that grows it,
Drink, lads, drink!
That lays it in and mows it,
Clink, jugs, clink!
To him that mows and makes it,
That scatters it and shakes it,
That turns and teds and rakes it,
Clink, jugs, clink!
Now here's to him that stacks it,
Drink, lads, drink!
That thrashes and that tacks it,
Clink, jugs, clink!
That cuts it out for eating,
When March-dropped lambs are bleating,
And the slate-blue clouds are sleeting,
Drink, lads, drink!
And here's to thane and yeoman,
Drink, lads, drink!
To horseman and to bowman,
Clink, jugs, clink!
To lofty and to low man,
Who bears a grudge to no man,
But finches from no foeman,
Drink, lads, drink!
ALFRED AUSTIN.
SEPTEMBER
B.
IRDS that were gray in the green are black in the yellow.
Here where the green remains, rocks one little fellow.
Quaker in gray, do you know that the green is going ?
More than that — do you know that the yellow is showing ?
Singer of songs, do you know that your youth is flying ?
That age will soon at the lock of your life be prying?
Lover of life, do you know that the brown is going ?
More than that — do you know that the gray is showing ?
S. FRANCES HARRISON (“Seranus”).
## p. 16509 (#209) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16509
INDIAN SUMMER
LLC
INGER, O day!
Let not thy purple haze
Fade utterly away.
The Indian summer lays
Her tender touch upon the emerald hills.
Exquisite thrills
Of delicate gladness fill the blue-veined air.
More restful even than rest,
The passionate sweetness that is everywhere.
Soft splendors in the west
Touch with the charm of coming changefulness
The yielding hills.
Oh linger, day!
Let not the dear
Delicious languor of thy dreamfulness
Vanish away!
Serene and clear,
The brooding stillness of the delicate air,
Dreamier than the dreamiest: depths of sleep,
Falls softly everywhere.
Still let me keep
One little hour longer tryst with thee,
O day of days!
Lean down on me,
In tender beauty of thy amethyst haze.
Upon the vine,
Rich clinging clusters of the ripening grape
Hang silent in the sun,
But in each one
Beats with full throb the quickening purple wine,
Whose pulse shall round the perfect fruit to shape.
Too dreamy even to dream,
I hear the murmuring bee and gliding stream;
The singing silence of the afternoon,
Lulling my yielding senses till they swoon
Into still deeper rest:
While soul released from sense,
Passionate and intense,
With quick exultant quiver in its wings,
Prophetic longing for diviner things,
Escapes the unthinking breast;
## p. 16510 (#210) ##########################################
16510
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Pierces rejoicing through the shining mist,
But shrinks before the keen, cold ether, kissed
By burning stars; delirious foretaste
Of joys the soul — too eager in its haste
To grasp ere won by the diviner right
Of birth through death — is far too weak to bear.
Bathed in earth's lesser light,
Slipping down slowly through the shining air,
Once more it steals into the dreaming breast,
Praying again to be its patient guest.
And as my senses wake,
The beautiful glad soul again to take,
The twilight falls.
A lonely wood-thrush calls
The day away.
«Where hast thou been to-day,
O soul of mine ? » I wondering question her.
She will not answer while the light winds stir
And rustle near to hear what she may say.
Thou needst not linger, day!
My soul and I
Would hold high converse of diviner things.
Unfold thy wings;
Wrap softly round thyself thy delicate haze,
And gliding down the slowly darkening ways,
Vanish away!
ALICE WELLINGTON Rollins.
INDIAN SUMMER
T"
HESE are the days when birds come back,-
A very few, a bird or two, -
To take a backward look.
These are the days when skies put on
The old, old sophistries of June, -
A blue-and-gold mistake.
Oh! fraud that almost cheats the bee,
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief;
## p. 16511 (#211) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16511
Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf!
Oh, sacrament of summer days!
Oh, last communion in the haze!
Permit a child to join -
Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine.
EMILY DICKINSON,
NOVEMBER IN THE SOUTH
THIS
his livelong day I listen to the fall
Of hickory-nuts and acorns to the ground,
The croak of rain-crows and the blue-jay's call,
The woodman's axe that hews with muffled sound.
.
And like a spendthrift in a threadbare coat
That still retains a dash of crimson hue,
An old woodpecker chatters forth a note
About the better summer days he knew.
Across the road a ruined cabin stands,
With ragweeds and with thistles at its door,
While withered cypress-vines hang tattered strands
About its falling roof and rotting floor.
In yonder forest nook no sound is heard,
Save when the walnuts patter on the earth,
Or when by winds the hectic leaves are stirred
To dance like witches in their maniac mirth.
Down in the orchard hang the golden pears,
Half honeycombed by yellowhammer beaks ;
Near by, a dwarfed and twisted apple bears
Its fruit, brown-red as Amazonian cheeks.
The lonesome landscape seems as if it yearned
Like our own aching hearts, when first we knew
The one love of our life was not returned,
Or first we found an old-time friend untrue.
## p. 16512 (#212) ##########################################
16512
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
At last the night comes, and the broad white moon
Is welcomed by the owl with frenzied glee;
The fat opossum, like a satyr, soon
Blinks at its light from yon persimmon-tree.
The raccoon starts to hear long-dreaded sounds
Amid his scattered spoils of ripened corn,
The cry of negroes and the yelp of hounds,
The wild rude pealing of a hunter's horn.
At last a gray mist covers all the land
Until we seem to wander in a cloud,
Far, far away upon some elfin strand
Where sorrow drapes us in a mildewed shroud.
No voice is heard in field or forest nigh
To break the desolation of the spell,
Save one sad mocking-bird in boughs near by,
Who sings like Tasso in his madman's cell;
While one magnolia blossom, ghostly white,
Like high-born Leonora, lingering there,
Haughty and splendid in the lonesome night,
Is pale with passion in her dumb despair.
WALTER MALONE.
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
'T
WAS the night before Christmas, when all through the
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse: [house
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced through their heads;
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,–
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon, on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below;
## p. 16513 (#213) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16513
When what to my wondering eyes should api ear
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
«Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer! now, Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Dunder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!
Now dash away, dash away, dash away all! »
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had fung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack
His eyes how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook, when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump,- a right jolly old elf, -
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spake not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle;
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night! ”
CLEMENT CLARKE MOORE.
XXVIII-1033
## p. 16514 (#214) ##########################################
16514
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE FROST
THE
HE Frost looked forth, one still, clear night,
And he said, “Now I shall be out of sight;
So through the valley and over the height
In silence I'll take my way.
I will not go like that blustering train,
The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain,
Who make so much bustle and noise in vain,
But I'll be as busy. as they! ”
Then he went to the mountain, and powdered its crest;
He climbed up the trees, and their boughs he dressed
With diamonds and pearls; and over the breast
Of the quivering lake he spread
A coat of mail, that it need not fear
The downward point of many a spear
That he hung on its margin, far and near,
Where a rock could reach its head.
He went to the windows of those who slept,
And over the pane like a fairy crept:
Wherever he breathed, wherever he stepped,
By the light of the moon were seen
Most beautiful things. There were flowers and trees,
There were bevies of birds and swarms of bees,
There were cities, thrones, temples, and towers, and these
All pictured in silver sheen!
(
But he did one thing that was hardly fair:
He peeped in the cupboard, and finding there
That all had forgotten for him to prepare,-
“Now, just to set them a-thinking,
I'll bite this basket of fruit,” said he;
« This costly pitcher I'll burst in three;
And the glass of water they've left for me
Shall (tchick! ) to tell them I'm drinking. ”
HANNAH FRANCES GOULD.
## p. 16515 (#215) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16515
1
THE ROOT'S DREAM
F
ROM the dark earth cool and fragrant,
A gnarled unlovely root
Sent forth in the rippling sunshine
A slender gold-green shoot.
The shoot in the languid breezes
Was soon by a pale bloom bent;
A sense of its frail white beauty
The sun to the black root sent.
1
The root was thrilled by a vision,
A vision of peace supreme ;-
The fragile star of a blossom
Was the black root's dainty dream.
1
R. K. MUNKITTRICK.
#
WILD HONEY
3
W***
HERE hints of racy sap and gum
Out of the old dark forest come;
Where birds their beaks like hammers wield,
And pith is pierced, and bark is peeled;
Where the green walnut's outer rind
Gives precious bitterness to the wind;-
There lurks the sweet creative power,
As lurks the honey in the flower.
In winter's bud that bursts in spring,
In nut of autumn's ripening,
In acrid bulb beneath the mold,
Sleeps the elixir, strong and old,
E
That Rosicrucians sought in vain,-
Life that renews itself again!
What bottled perfume is so good
As fragrance of split tulip-wood ?
What fabled drink of god or Muse
Was rich as purple mulberry-juice ?
## p. 16516 (#216) ##########################################
16516
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
And what school-polished gem of thought
Is like the rune from Nature caught ?
He is a poet strong and true
Who loves wild thyme and honey-dew;
And like a brown bee works and sings
With morning freshness on his wings,
And a gold burden on his thighs, -
The pollen-dust of centuries!
MAURICE THOMPSON.
THE WAKING OF THE LARK
O
BONNIE bird that in the brake, exultant, does prepare thee -
As poets do whose thoughts are true — for wings that will
upbear thee,
Oh, tell me, tell me, bonnie bird,
Canst thou not pipe of hope deferred ?
Or canst thou sing of naught but spring among the golden meadows?
Methinks a bard (and thou art one) should suit his song to sorrow;
And tell of pain, as well as gain, that waits us on the morrow:
But thou art not a prophet, thou,
If naught but joy can touch thee now;
If, in thy heart, thou hast no vow that speaks of Nature's anguish.
Oh, I have held my sorrows dear, and felt, though poor and slighted,
The songs we love are those we hear when love is unrequited.
But thou art still the slave of dawn,
And canst not sing till night be gone,
Till o'er the pathway of the fawn the sunbeams shine and quiver.
Thou art the minion of the sun that rises in his splendor,
And canst not spare for Dian fair the songs that should attend her:
The moon, so sad and silver pale,
Is mistress of the nightingale;
And thou wilt sing on hill and dale no ditties in the darkness.
For queen and king thou wilt not spare one note of thine outpouring;
And thou'rt as free as breezes be on Nature's velvet flooring :
The daisy, with its hood undone,
The grass, the sunlight, and the sun
These are the joys, thou holy one, that pay thee for thy singing.
## p. 16517 (#217) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16517
Oh, hush! Oh, hush! how wild a gush of rapture in the distance -
A roll of rhymes, a toll of chimes, a cry for love's assistance;
A sound that wells from happy throats,
A flood of song where beauty foats,
And where our thoughts, like golden boats, do seem to cross a river.
This is the advent of the lark,– the priest in gray apparel, -
Who doth prepare to trill in air his sinless summer carol;
This is the prelude to the lay
The birds did sing in Cæsar's day,
And will again, for aye and aye, in praise of God's creation.
O dainty thing, on wonder's wing, by life and love elated,
Oh, sing aloud from cloud to cloud, till day be consecrated;
Till from the gateways of the morn,
The sun, with all his light unshorn,
His robes of darkness round him torn, doth scale the lofty heavens!
ERIC MACKAY.
TO THE LARK
(T'R EHEDYDD)
S
ENTINEL of the morning light!
Reveler of the spring!
How sweetly, nobly wild thy flight,
Thy boundless journeying:
Far from thy brethren of the woods, alone,
A hermit chorister before God's throne !
Oh! wilt thou climb yon heavens for me,
Yon rampart's starry height,
Thou interlude of melody
'Twixt darkness and the light,
And seek with heaven's first dawn upon thy crest.
My lady-love, the moonbeam of the west ?
No woodland caroler art thou;
Far from the archer's eye,
Thy course is o'er the mountain's brow,
Thy music in the sky:
Then fearless float thy path of cloud along,
Thou earthly denizen of angel song.
DAFYDD AP GWILYM.
(Welsh, Fourteenth Century. )
## p. 16518 (#218) ##########################################
16518
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
MEADOW-LARKS
S)
WEET, sweet, sweet! Oh happy that I am!
(Listen to the meadow-larks, across the fields that sing ! )
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O subtle breath of balm,
O winds that blow, O buds that grow, O rapture of the
spring!
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O skies, serene and blue,
That shut the velvet pastures in, that fold the mountain's
crest!
Sweet, sweet, sweet! What of the clouds ye knew?
The vessels ride a golden tide, upon a sea at rest.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! Who prates of care and pain ?
Who says that life is sorrowful? O life so glad, so fleet!
Ah! he who lives the noblest life finds life the noblest gain,
The tears of pain a tender rain to make its waters sweet.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy world that is!
Dear heart, I hear across the fields my mateling pipe and call.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! Oworld so full of bliss, –
For life is love, the world is love, and love is over all!
INA D. COOLBRITH.
MORNING SONG
T"
He lark now leaves his watery nest,
And climbing shakes his dewy wings:
He takes this window for the east;
And to implore your light, he sings.
Awake, awake! the morn will never rise,
Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.
The merchant bows unto the seaman's star,
The plowman from the sun his season takes,
But still the lover wonders what they are
Who look for day before his mistress wakes. ·
Awake, awake, break through your veils of lawn,
Then draw your curtains, and begin the dawn.
SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT.
## p. 16519 (#219) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16519
THE O’LINCON FAMILY
A
FLOCK of merry singing-birds was sporting in the grove;
Some were warbling cheerily, and some were making love:
There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,-
A livelier set was never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle, -
Crying, Phew, shew, Wadolincon, see, see, Bobolincon,
Down among the tickletops, hiding in the buttercups!
I know the saucy chap, I see his shining cap
Bobbing in the clover there,- see, see, see! ”
Up flies Bobolincon, perching on an apple-tree,
Startled by his rival's song, quickened by his raillery;
Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curvetting in the air,
And merrily he turns about, and warns him to beware!
« 'Tis you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O!
But wait a week, till flowers are cheery,— wait a week, and ere you
marry,
Be sure of a house wherein to tarry!
Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait! »
Every one's a funny fellow; every one's a little mellow:
Follow, follow, follow, follow, o'er the hill and in the hollow!
Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly;
They cross and turn, and in and out, and down in the middle, and
wheel about,-
With a
Phew, shew, Wadolincon! listen to me, Bobolincon!
Happy's the wooing that's speedily doing, that's speedily doing,
That's merry and over with the bloom of the clover!
Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me! »
Oh what a happy life they lead, over the hill and in the mead!
