Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent The grand old gardener and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me 'T is only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood. I know you, Clara Vere de Vere: You pine among your halls and towers: The languid light of your proud eyes Is wearied of the rolling hours. In glowing health, with boundless wealth, You needs must play such pranks as these. They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen o' the May. They say he's dying all for love, but that can never be; They say his heart is breaking, mother-what is that to me? There's many a bolder lad 'll woo me any summer day, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green, And you'll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen; For the shepherd-lads on every side 'll come from far away, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. The honeysuckle round the porch has woven its wavy bowers, And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers; And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass, And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass; There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the live-long day, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. All the valley, mother, 'll be fresh and green and still, And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill, And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'll merrily glance and play, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear, To-morrow 'll be the happiest time of all the glad New-year: To-morrow 'll be of all the year the maddest, merriest day, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 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. THE MAY QUEEN. 303 To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left be- | If I can I'll come again, mother, from out my hind 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 of 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 the Queen of May; And we danced about the May-pole and in the hazel-copse, Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops. resting-place; There's not a flower on all the hills: the frost is She 'll find my garden-tools upon the granary on the pane: I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again: I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out 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-cagement, 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. floor; Let her take 'em: they are hers: I shall never garden more: But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rosebush that I set About the parlor-window and the box of mign onette. Good-night, sweet mother: call me before the day is born. All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn; But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New. year, So, if you 're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear. CONCLUSION. I THOUGHT to pass away before, and yet alive I am; And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb. How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year! To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet 's here. Oh, sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies, And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me that cannot rise, And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow, And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go. It seemed so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun, And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be done! But still I think it can't be long before I find release; And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace. Oh, blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair! And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me there! Oh, blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver ! If I had lived-I cannot tell-I might have been head! At housand times I blessed him, as he knelt beside my bed. He taught me all the mercy, for he showed me all the sin. Now, though my lamp was lighted late, there 's One will let me in: Nor would I now be well, mother, again, if that could be, For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me. I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat, There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet: But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine, And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign. All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call: It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all; The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll, his wife; come within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. THE LOTOS-EATERS. A land where all things always seemed the same! Branches they bore of that enchanted stem, make. | Falls, and floats adown the air. Ripens and fades, and falls and hath no toil, IV. Hateful is the dark-blue sky, Death is the end of life: ah, why Should life all labor be? 305 Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, ful ease. CHORIC SONG. I. THERE is sweet music here that softer falls To hear each other's whispered speech; To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, Music that brings sweet sleep down from the To lend our hearts and spirits wholly blissful skies. Here are cool mosses deep, And through the moss the ivies creep, And in the stream the long-leafed flowers weep, And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. II. Why are we weighed upon with heaviness, Still from one sorrow to another thrown: Nor ever fold our wings, And cease from wanderings, Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm; Nor hearken what the inner spirit sings, "There is no joy but calm!" To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; VI. Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, change; For surely now our household hearths are cold: Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of Is there confusion in the little isle? things? III. Lo! in the middle of the wood The folded leaf is wooed from out the bud Let what is broken so remain. stars. VII. But, propped on beds of amaranth and moly, How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) With half-dropped eyelids still, To watch the long bright river drawing slowly From cave to cave through the thick-twinèd vine- surge was seething free, Where the wallowing monster spouted his foamfountains in the sea. Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, Like a tale of little meaning, though the words are strong; Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; Till they perish and they suffer-some, 't is whis. pered, down in hell Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; Oh, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. I READ, before my eyelids dropped their shade, "The Legend of Good Women," long ago Sung by the morning star of song, who made His music heard below; Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill And for a while the knowledge of his art Brimful of those wild tales, Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every land I saw, wherever light illumineth, Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand The downward slope to death. Those far-renowned brides of ancient song Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars, And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong, And trumpets blown for wars; And clattering flints battered with clanging hoofs; And I saw crowds in columned sanctuaries; And forms that passed at windows and on roofs Of marble palaces; Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates, Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes, Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates, And hushed seraglios. So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way, Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand, I started once, or seemed to start, in pain, Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak, As when a great thought strikes along the brain, And flushes all the cheek. And once my arm was lifted to hew down A cavalier from off his saddle-bow, That bore a lady from a leaguered town; And then, I know not how, |