Thyself in flesh, and sat awhile disguised And tasted every sweet and bitter there, In every time, in every far-off land ;— If my heart murmur'd when my lips were still. home One night Thou slept'st within the dreadful grave, The world and I have done; with humble heart I never more may look upon his face, May never hear his voice. Thou know'st him well, Sang at Thy shining doors, my prayer arose I have been working from the early dawn, Bursts into tears beside a twilight church, Fill'd with a psalm which he knew long ago I ran to her, But she had sunk in swoon, and there I stood 66 I knelt down by the bed. Come, Margery! For necklaces. You have been in the woods; "They have left me here, Upon this dark and lonely, lonely road; I cannot hear a voice, or touch a hand; O Father, take me home!" She sobb'd and wept Her Father took her home, I stoop'd to catch A. Smith CLXIII ON THE GRAVE OF BISHOP KEN, AT Let other thoughts, where'er I roam, A basket-work where bars are bent, And shapes above that represent These signs of him that slumbers there The dignity betoken; These iron bars a heart declare Hard bent but never broken; There with the churchyard's common dust Was nothing rare or single : Yet laid he to the sacred wall The blessed crumbs might almost fall Who was this father of the Church, But preciously tradition keeps The fame of holy men; So there the Christian smiles or weeps A name his country once forsook, And martyr in the Spirit's ! That dared with royal power to cope, R. M. Milnes CLXIV NEW-YEAR'S EVE If you're waking, call me early, call me early, mother dear, For I would see the sun rise upon the glad new year. It is the last new-year that I shall ever see, Then you may lay me low i' the mould, and think no more of me. To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind; And the new-year's coming up, mother, but I shall never see The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree. Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a merry day; Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May; And we danced about the maypole, and in the hazel copse, Till Charles's wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops. There's not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane: I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again : on high: I long to see a flower so before the day I die. The building rook'll caw from the windy tall elm tree, And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea, And the swallow 'll come back again with Summer o'er the wave, But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave. Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine, In the early early morning the Summer sun 'll shine, Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill, When you are warm asleep, mother, and all the world is still. |