Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

"T was then we sat on ae laigh bink,

To leir ilk ither lear;

And tones and looks and smiles were shed, Remembered evermair.

I wonder, Jeanie, aften yet,

When sitting on that bink, Cheek touchin' cheek, loof locked in loof,

What our wee heads could think. When baith bent doun ower ae braid page, Wi' ae buik on our knee,

Thy lips were on thy lesson, but

My lesson was in thee.

O, mind ye how we hung our heads,
How cheeks brent red wi' shame,
Whene'er the scule-weans, laughin', said
We cleeked thegither hame?
And mind ye o' the Saturdays,

(The scule then skail't at noon,) When we ran off to speel the braes, The broomy braes o' June?

My head rins round and round about, My heart flows like a sea,

As ane by ane the thochts rush back
O' scule-time, and o' thee.

O mornin' life! O mornin' luve !
O lichtsome days and lang,

When hinnied hopes around our hearts
Like simmer blossoms sprang!

O, mind ye, luve, how aft we left
The deavin' dinsome toun,

To wander by the green burnside,
And hear its waters croon ?

The simmer leaves hung ower our heads,
The flowers burst round our feet,
And in the gloamin' o' the wood
The throssil whusslit sweet;

The throssil whusslit in the wood,

The burn sang to the trees, And we, with nature's heart in tune,

Concerted harmonies;

And on the knowe abune the burn
For hours thegither sat

In the silentness o' joy, till baith
Wi' very gladness grat.

Ay, ay, dear Jeanie Morrison,

Tears trickled doun your cheek
Like dow-beads on a rose, yet nane
Had ony power to speak!
That was a time, a blessed time,

When hearts were fresh and young, When freely gushed all feelings forth, Unsyllabled-unsung!

I marvel, Jeanie Morrison,

Gin I hae been to thee

As closely twined wi' earliest thochts
As ye hae been to me?

O, tell me gin their music fills

Thine ear as it does mine!

O, say gin e'er your heart grows grit
Wi' dreamings o' langsyne?

I've wandered east, I've wandered west.
I've borne a weary lot;

But in my wanderings, far or near,

Ye never were forgot.

The fount that first burst frae this heart
Still travels on its way;
And channels deeper, as it rins,
The luve o' life's young day.

O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison,

Since we were sindered young I've never seen your face nor heard The music o' your tongue;

But I could hug all wretchedness,

And happy could I die,

Did I but ken your heart still dreamed
O' bygone days and me!

[blocks in formation]

THERE lived a singer in France of old
By the tideless, dolorous, midland sea.
In a land of sand and ruin and gold

There shone one woman, and none but she.
And finding life for her love's sake fail,
Being fain to see her, he bade set sail,
Touched land, and saw her as life grew cold,
And praised God, seeing; and so died he.

Died, praising God for his gift and grace:
For she bowed down to him weeping, and said,
"Live"; and her tears were shed on his face
Or ever the life in his face was shed.

The sharp tears fell through her hair, and stung
Once, and her close lips touched him and clung
Once, and grew one with his lips for a space;
And so drew back, and the man was dead.

O brother, the gods were good to you.
Sleep, and be glad while the world endures.
Be well content as the years wear through;

Give thanks for life, and the loves and lures;
Give thanks for life, O brother, and death,
For the sweet last sound of her feet, her breath,
For gifts she gave you, gracious and few,
Tears and kisses, that lady of yours.

Rest, and be glad of the gods; but I,

How shall I praise them, or how take rest? There is not room under all the sky

For me that know not of worst or best, Dream or desire of the days before, Sweet things or bitterness, any more. Love will not come to me now though I die, As love came close to you, breast to breast.

I shall never be friends again with roses;

I shall loathe sweet tunes, where a note grown strong

Relents and recoils, and climbs and closes,

As a wave of the sea turned back by song. There are sounds where the soul's delight takes fire, Face to face with its own desire;

A delight that rebels, a desire that reposes;
I shall hate sweet music my whole life long.

The pulse of war and passion of wonder,

The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine,

The stars that sing and the loves that thunder,
The music burning at heart like wine,

An armed archangel whose hands raise up
All senses mixed in the spirit's cup,

Till flesh and spirit are molten in sunder, —
These things are over, and no more mine.

These were a part of the playing I heard

Once, ere my love and my heart were at strife; Love that sings and hath wings as a bird,

Balm of the wound and heft of the knife.
Fairer than earth is the sea, and sleep
Than overwatching of eyes that weep,
Now time has done with his one sweet word,
The wine and leaven of lovely life.

I shall go my ways, tread out my measure,
Fill the days of my daily breath
With fugitive things not good to treasure,
Do as the world doth, say as it saith;
But if we had loved each other - O sweet,
Had you felt, lying under the palms of your feet,
The heart of my heart, beating harder with pleasure
To feel you tread it to dust and death-

Ah, had I not taken my life up and given
All that life gives and the years let go,
The wine and money, the balm and leaven,

The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low,

Come life, come death, not a word be said;
Should I lose you living, and vex you dead?
I shall never tell you on earth; and in heaven,
If I cry to you then, will you hear or know?

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

DAY, IN MELTING PURPLE DYING
DAY, in melting purple dying;
Blossoms, all around me sighing;
Fragrance, from the lilies straying;
Zephyr, with my ringlets playing;
Ye but waken my distress;

I am sick of loneliness!

Thou, to whom I love to hearken,
Come, ere night around me darken;
Though thy softness but deceive me,
Say thou 'rt true, and I'll believe thee;
Veil, if ill, thy soul's intent,
Let me think it innocent!
Save thy toiling, spare thy treasure ;
All I ask is friendship's pleasure;
Let the shining ore lie darkling,
Bring no gem in lustre sparkling ;
Gifts and gold are naught to me,
I would only look on thee!

Tell to thee the high-wrought feeling,
Ecstasy but in revealing;
Paint to thee the deep sensation,
Rapture in participation;

Yet but torture, if comprest
In a lone, unfriended breast.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

THE WIFE TO HER HUSBAND. LINGER not long. Home is not home without thee: Its dearest tokens do but make me mourn. O, let its memory, like a chain about thee, Gently compel and hasten thy return!

Linger not long. Though crowds should woo thy staying,

Bethink thee, can the mirth of thy friends, though dear,

Compensate for the grief thy long delaying

Costs the fond heart that sighs to have thee here? Linger not long. How shall I watch thy coming, As evening shadows stretch o'er moor and dell; When the wild bee hath ceased her busy humming, And silence hangs on all things like a spell!

[blocks in formation]

WHAT shall I do with all the days and hours
That must be counted ere I see thy face?
How shall I charm the interval that lowers
Between this time and that sweet time of grace!
Shall I in slumber steep each weary sense,
Weary with longing? Shall I flee away
Into past days, and with some fond pretence
Cheat myself to forget the present day?
Shall love for thee lay on my soul the sin

Of casting from me God's great gift of time? Shall I, these mists of memory locked within, Leave and forget life's purposes sublime?

O, how or by what means may I contrive

To bring the hour that brings thee back more near?

How may I teach my drooping hope to live

Until that blessed time, and thou art here?
I'll tell thee; for thy sake I will lay hold
Of all good aims, and consecrate to thee,
In worthy deeds, each moment that is told
While thou, beloved one! art far from me.
For thee I will arouse my thoughts to try
All heavenward flights, all high and holy strains;
For thy dear sake I will walk patiently
Through these long hours, nor call their min-
utes pains.

I will this dreary blank of absence make
A noble task-time; and will therein strive
To follow excellence, and to o'ertake

More good than I have won since yet I live. So may this doomed time build up in me

A thousand graces, which shall thus be thine; So may my love and longing hallowed be, And thy dear thought an influence divine.

FRANCES ANNE KEMBLR

DISAPPOINTMENT AND ESTRANGEMENT.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

FROM MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM."

FOR aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth :
But, either it was different in blood,
Or else misgraffed in respect of years;
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends;
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say, - Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.

SHAKESPEARE.

THE BANKS O' DOON.

YE banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,

And I sae weary, fu' o' care?

Thou 'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird, That wantons through the flowering thorn; Thou minds me o' departed joys,

Departed— never to return.

Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon,

To see the rose and woodbine twine; And ilka bird sang o' its luve,

And, fondly, sae did I o' mine. Wi' lightsome heart I pou'd a rose, Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree; And my fause luver stole my rose, But ah! he left the thorn wi' me.

ROBERT BURNS.

AULD ROBIN GRAY.

Young Jamie loo'd me weel, and socht me for his bride;

But, saving a croun, he had naething else beside. To mak that croun a pund, young Jamie gaed to

sea;

And the croun and the pund were baith for me!

He hadna been awa a week but only twa,
When my mother she fell sick, and the cow was

stown awa;

My father brak his arm, and young Jamie at the

sea,

And auld Robin Gray cam' a-courtin' me.

My father cou'dna work, and my mother cou'dna spin;

I toiled day and nicht, but their bread I cou'dna win;

Auld Rob maintained them baith, and, wi' tears in his ee,

Said, "Jenny, for their sakes, O marry me!"

My heart it said nay, for I looked for Jamie back;

But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was a wrack;

The ship it was a wrack! Why didna Jamie dee?

Or why do I live to say, Wae's me?

[blocks in formation]

O sair, sair did we greet, and muckle did we say;
We took but ae kiss, and we tore ourselves away:
I wish I were dead, but I'm no like to dee;
And why do I live to say, Wae's me?

WHEN the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin;

hame,

And a' the warld to sleep are gane;

The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my ee, When my gudeman lies sound by me.

I daurna think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin;
But I'll do my best a gude wife to be,
For auld Robin Gray is kind unto me.

LADY ANNE BARNARD

AULD ROB MORRIS.

THERE's auld Rob Morris that wons in yon glen, He's the king o' guid fellows and wale of auld

men:

He has gowd in his coffers, he has owsen and kine, And ae bonnie lassie, his darling and mine.

She's fresh as the morning, the fairest in May; She's sweet as the ev'ning amang the new hay; As blythe and as artless as the lambs on the lea, And dear to my heart as the light to my e'e. But O, she's an heiress, auld Robin's a laird, And my daddie has naught but a cot-house and yard;

A wooer like me maunna hope to come speed,

The wounds I must hide that will soon be my

dead.

Beside the sceptre. Thus I made my home
In the soft palace of a fairy Future!
My father died; and I, the peasant-born,
Was my own lord. Then did I seek to rise
Out of the prison of my mean estate;
And, with such jewels as the exploring mind
Brings from the caves of Knowledge, buy my

ransom

From those twin jailers of the daring heart,
Low birth and iron fortune. Thy bright image,
Glassed in my soul, took all the hues of glory,
And lured me on to those inspiring toils
By which man masters men! For thee, I grew
A midnight student o'er the dreams of sages!
For thee, I sought to borrow from each Grace
And every Muse such attributes as lend
Ideal charms to Love. I thought of thee,
- of thee,
And on the painter's canvas grew the life

And passion taught me poesy,

The day comes to me, but delight brings me Of beauty!- Art became the shadow

nane:

The night comes to me, but my rest it is gane; I wander my lane like a night-troubled ghaist, And I sigh as my heart it wad burst in my breast.

O, had she but been of a lower degree,

Of the dear starlight of thy haunting eyes! Men called me vain,

not;

some, mad,

--

I heeded

- for it was sweet, But still toiled on, hoped on, If not to win, to feel more worthy, thee!

[ocr errors]

I then might hae hoped she wad smiled upon At last, in one mad hour, I dared to pour

me!

O, how past describing had then been my bliss, As now my distraction no words can express!

ROBERT BURNS.

The thoughts that burst their channels into song, And sent them to thee, such a tribute, lady, As beauty rarely scorns, even from the meanest. The name — appended by the burning heart That longed to show its idol what bright things It had created-yea, the enthusiast's name,

CLAUDE MELNOTTE'S APOLOGY AND That should have been thy triumph, was thy

[blocks in formation]

From my first years my soul was filled with thee; It turned, and stung thee!

I saw thee midst the flowers the lowly boy

Tended, unmarked by thee, a spirit of bloom,
And joy and freshness, as spring itself

[blocks in formation]
« VorigeDoorgaan »