Still be it ours, in Care's despite, To join the chorus free: CHARLES MACKAY. COME, REST IN THIS BOSOM. COME, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer, Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here; Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast, And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last. Oh, what was love made for, if 'tis not the same Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame? I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart, I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art. Thou hast call'd me thy angel in moments of bliss, An' he has gi'en to me his heart, His mind and manners won my heart: It wad be waur than theft. The langest life can ne'er repay SUSANNA BLAMIRE. MARY MORISON. O MARY, at thy window be! It is the wish'd, the trysted hour! That make the miser's treasure poor: Yestreen' when to the trembling string And thy angel I'll be 'mid the horrors of To thee my fancy took its wing,— I sat, but neither heard nor saw: Though this was fair, and that was braw, And yon the toast of a' the town, I sigh'd, and said amang them a', Ye are na Mary Morison." O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace At least be pity to me shown; ROBERT BURNS. THE MINSTREL'S SONG. OH, sing unto my roundelay! Oh, drop the briny tear with me! My love is dead, Gone to his death bed, Black his hair as the winter night, White his neck as the summer snow, Ruddy his face as the morning light; Cold he lies in the grave below. My love is dead, Gone to his death bed, All under the willow tree. Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note; Oh, he lies by the willow tree! Gone to his death bed, Hark! the raven flaps his wing In the brier'd dell below; To the nightmares as they go. My love is dead, Gone to his death bed, All under the willow tree. See! the white moon shines on high; Whiter is my true-love's shroud, Whiter than the morning sky, Whiter than the evening cloud. My love is dead, Gone to his deathbed, All under the willow tree. Here, upon my true-love's grave Gone to his death bed, With my hands I'll bind the briers My love is dead, Gone to his death bed, Come, with acorn-cup and thorn, Water-witches, crown'd with reytes, Bear me to your lethal tide. THOMAS CHATTERTON. ONE WORD IS TOO OFTEN ONE word is too often profaned For thee to disdain it. For prudence to smother, And pity from thee more dear Than that from another. I can give not what men call love; PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. TO HIS FORSAKEN MISTRESS. I DO confess thou'rt smooth and fair, That lips could speak, had power to move thee: But I can let thee now alone, I do confess thou'rt sweet; yet find That kisses everything it meets; The morning rose that untouch'd stands Arm'd with her briers, how sweetly smells! But pluck'd and strain'd through ruder hands, No more her sweetness with her dwells, But scent and beauty both are gone, And leaves fall from her, one by one. 'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, On her pallid cheek and forehead came a the curlews call, color and a light, Dreary gleams about the moorland flying As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the over Locksley Hall; Locksley Hall that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, northern night. And she turn'd-her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark cataracts. of hazel eyes— Many a night from yonder ivied casement, Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. they should do me wrong:" 66 Saying, 'Dost thou love me, cousin ?" weeping, "I have loved thee long.” Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands; thro' the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself a silver braid. in golden sands. Here about the beach I wander'd, nourish- Love took up the harp of Life, and smote ing a youth sublime on all the chords with might; With the fairy tales of science, and the Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, long result of Time; pass'd in music out of sight. When the centuries behind me like a Many a morning on the moorland did we fruitful land reposed; hear the copses ring, When I clung to all the present for the And her whisper throng'd my pulses with promise that it 'closed: the fullness of the Spring. When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the And our spirits rush'd together at the wonder that would be. touching of the lips. In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my the robin's breast; Amy, mine no more! barren, barren shore! In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the himself another crest: Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung, Well-'tis well that I should bluster!— Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to Would to God-for I had loved thee more a shrewish tongue! than ever wife was loved. Is it well to wish thee happy?-having Am I mad, that I should cherish that known me-to decline On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine! Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day, which bears but bitter fruit? I will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart be at the root. Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come What is fine within thee growing coarse to As the many winter'd crow that leads the sympathize with clay. As the husband is, the wife is thou art mated with a clown, clanging rookery home. Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind? And the grossness of his nature will have Can I part her from herself, and love her, weight to drag thee down. as I knew her, kind? He will hold thee, when his passion shall I remember one that perish'd: sweetly did have spent its novel force, she speak and move: Something better than his dog, a little Such a one do I remember, whom to look dearer than his horse. What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine. Go to him: it is thy duty: kiss him: take his hand in thine. at was to love. It may be my lord is weary, that his brain Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is overwrought; Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought. He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand is truth the poet sings, That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof, Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I In the dead unhappy night, and when the slew thee with my hand! Better thou and I were lying, hidden from rain is on the roof. Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall, Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall. Curséd be the social wants that sin against Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep, the strength of youth! Cursed be the social lies that warp us from To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the the living truth! tears that thou wilt weep. Curséd be the sickly forms that err from Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whishonest Nature's rule! per'd by the phantom years, Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears; forehead of the fool! |