I kiss'd my boy in the prison, before he went out to die.

"They dar'd me to do it," he said, and he never has told me a lie.

I whipp'd him for robbing an orchard once when he was but a child

"The farmer dar'd me to do it," he said ; he was always so wild

And idle- and could n't be idle

They beat me for that, they beat me

you know that I could n't but hear And then at the last they found I had grown so stupid and still

They let me abroad again - but the creatures had work'd their will.

Flesh of my flesh was gone, but bone of my bone was left

I stole them all from the lawyers you, will you call it a theft ?

and

But he liv'd with a lot of wild mates, and they never would let him be good; They swore that he dare not rob the mail, and he swore that he would

And he took no life, but he took one purse, and when all was done

He flung it among his fellows — I'll none of it, said my son.

I came into court to the Judge and the lawyers. I told them my tale,

God's own truth but they kill'd him,

they kill'd him for robbing the mail. They hang'd him in chains for a show.

he had always borne a good name To be hang'd for a thief. and then put away is n't that enough shame? Dust to dust low down let us hide! but they set him so high That all the ships of the world could stare at him, passing by.

God 'ill pardon the hell-black raven and horrible fowls of the air, But not the black heart of the lawyer who

kill'd him and hang'd him there.

And the jailer forced me away. I had bid him my last goodbye ;

They had fasten'd the door of his cell, "O mother!" I heard him cry.

I could n't get back tho' I tried, he had something further to say,

And now

now I never shall know it. The jailer forced me away.

Then since I could n't but hear that cry of my boy that was dead,

They seiz'd me and shut me up: they they fasten'd me down on my bed.

"Mother, O mother!" he call'd in the dark to me year after year

the bones that had laugh'd and had cried

Theirs? O no! they are mine

not

theirs they had mov'd in my side.

Do you think I was scar'd by the bones? I kiss'd 'em, I buried 'em all

;

I can't dig deep, I am old. in the night by the churchyard wall. My Willy 'ill rise up whole when the trumpet of judgment 'ill sound, But I charge you never to say that I laid him in holy ground.

They would scratch him up - they would hang him again on the cursed tree. Sin? O yes we are sinners, I know let all that be,

And read me a Bible verse of the Lord's good will toward men

"Full of compassion and mercy, the Lord' let me hear it again ; "Full of compassion and mercy longsuffering." Yes, O yes!

- the

For the lawyer is born but to murder
Saviour lives but to bless.
He'll never put on the black cap except for
the worst of the worst,

And the first may be last I have heard it in church — and the last may be first. Suffering - O long-suffering

yes, as the Lord must know, Year after year in the mist and the wind and the shower and the snow.

Heard, have you? what? they have told you he never repented his sin.

How do they know it ? are they his mother? are you of his kin?

Heard! have you ever heard, when the storm on the downs began,

The wind that 'ill wail like a child and the sea that 'ill moan like a man?

Election, Election and Reprobation—it's all very well.

But I go to-night to my boy, and I shall not find him in Hell.

For I car'd so much for my boy that the Lord has look'd into my care,

And He means me, I'm sure, to be happy with Willy, I know not where.

And if he be lost- but to save my soul, that is all your desire :

Do you think that I care for my soul if my boy be gone to the fire ?

I have been with God in the dark you may leave me alone

go, go,

You never have borne a child just as hard as a stone.

you are

To foil and spoil the tyrant Beneath the greenwood tree.

There is no land like England
Where'er the light of day be ;
There are no wives like English wives,
So fair and chaste as they be.
There is no land like England
Where'er the light of day be;
There are no maids like the English maids,
So beautiful as they be.

And these shall wed with freemen,
And all their sons be free,

To sing the songs of England
Beneath the greenwood tree.

VASTNESS

MANY a hearth upon our dark globe sighs after many a vanish'd face,

Many a planet by many a sun may roll with a dust of a vanish'd race.

Raving politics, never at rest as this poor earth's pale history runs,

What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of suns?

Lies upon this side, lies upon that side, truthless violence mourn'd by the Wise,

Thousands of voices drowning his own in a popular torrent of lies upon lies ;

Stately purposes, valor in battle, glorious annals of army and fleet,

Death for the right cause, death for the wrong cause, trumpets of victory, groans of defeat ;

Innocence seeth'd in her mother's milk, and Charity setting the martyr aflame;

Thraldom who walks with the banner of Freedom, and recks not to ruin a realm in her name ;

Faith at her zenith, or all but lost in the gloom of doubts that darken the schools;

Craft with a bunch of all-heal in her hand, follow'd up by her vassal legion of fools;

Trade flying over a thousand seas with her

spice and her vintage, her silk and her corn;

Desolate offing, sailorless harbors, famishing populace, wharves forlorn ;

Star of the morning, Hope in the sunrise; gloom of the evening, Life at a close; Pleasure who flaunts on her wide downway with her flying robe and her poison'd

rose;

Pain, that has crawl'd from the corpse of Pleasure, a worm which writhes all day, and at night

Stirs up again in the heart of the sleeper, and stings him back to the curse of the light ;

Wealth with his wines and his wedded harlots; honest Poverty, bare to the bone;

Opulent Avarice, lean as Poverty; Flattery gilding the rift in a throne;

Fame blowing out from her golden trumpet a jubilant challenge to Time and to Fate ;

Slander, her shadow, sowing the nettle on all the laurell'd graves of the Great ;

Love for the maiden, crown'd with marriage, no regrets for aught that has been, Household happiness, gracious children,

debtless competence, golden mean ;

National hatreds of whole generations, and pigmy spites of the village spire; Vows that will last to the last death-ruckle, and vows that are snapp'd in a moment of fire

He that has liv'd for the lust of a minute, and died in the doing it, flesh without mind;

He that has nail'd all flesh to the Cross, till Self died out in the love of his kind;

Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter, and all these old revolutions of earth ;

All new-old revolutions of Empire change of the tide what is all of it worth?

AWAY, haunt thou not me,
Thou vain Philosophy!
Little hast thou bestead,

Save to perplex the head,

And leave the spirit dead.

Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go,

While from the secret treasure-depths below,

Fed by the skyey shower,

By frivolous laugh and prate conventional All too untun'd for all she thought to

She stood as if for sinking. Yet anon, With recollections clear, august, sublime,