The Cambridge Book of Poetry and Song

Because my home is near.

Why come they not?

come

They do not

My breaking heart to meet!
A heavier darkness on me falls,--
I cannot lift my feet.

Oh, yes, they come!-they never fail
To listen for my sighs;

My poor heart brightens when it

meets

The sunshine of their eyes. Again they come to meet me,- God! Wilt thou the thought forgive? If 'twere not for my dog and cat, I think I could not live.

This heart is like a churchyard stone;
My playful cat and honest dog
My home is comfort's grave;

Are all the friends I have; And yet my house is filled with friends,

But foes they seem, and are. What makes them hostile? IGNO

RANCE;

Then let me not despair.

My heart grows faint when home I But oh! I sigh when home I come,

come,

May God the thought forgive!

If 'twere not for my dog and cat,
I think I could not live.

I'd rather be a happy bird,

Than, scorned and loathed, a king; But man should live while for him lives

The meanest loving thing. Thou busy bee! how canst thou choose So far and wide to roam? O blessed bee! thy glad wings say Thou hast a happy home! But I, when I come home,- O God! Wilt thou the thought forgive? If 'twere not for my dog and cat, I think I could not live.

May God the thought forgive! If 'twere not for my dog and cat, I think I could not live.

Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias
brought,

Never from lips of cunning, fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle;
Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,—
The canticles of love and woe;
The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian
Rome,

Wrought in a sad sincerity;

Be just at home; then write your scroll Himself from God he could not free;

Of honor o'er the sea,

And bid the broad Atlantic roll

A ferry of the free.

And, henceforth, there shall be no chain,

Save underneath the sea

He builded better than he knew;
The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Knowest thou what wove yon wood-
bird's nest

Of leaves, and feathers from her breast?

The wires shall murmur through the Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,

main

Sweet songs of Liberty.

The conscious stars accord above,
The waters wild below,

And under, through the cable wove,
Her fiery errands go.

Painting with morn each annual cell?
Or how the sacred pine-tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads?
Such and so grew these holy piles,
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,
As the best gem upon her zone;

spires.

The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told,
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.
One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.
I know what say the fathers wise,-
The Book itself before me lies,
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
And he who blent both in his line,
The younger Golden Lips or mines,
Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.
His words are music in my ear,
I see his cowlèd portrait dear;
And yet, for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.

THE RHODORA.

IN May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,

I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,

Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,

To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

The purple petals, fallen in the pool, Made the black water with their beauty gay;

Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,

And court the flower that cheapens his array.

Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,

Dear, tell them, that if eyes were made for seeing,

Then beauty is its own excuse for being:

Why thou wert there, oh, rival of the rose!

I never thought to ask, I never knew: But in my simple ignorance, suppose The selfsame power that brought me there, brought you.

THE HUMBLE-BEE.
BURLY, dozing humble-bee,
Where thou art is clime for me,
Let them sail for Porto Rique,
Far-off heats through seas to seek;
I will follow thee alone,
Thou animated torrid-zone!
Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,
Let me chase thy waving lines:
Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,
Singing over shrubs and vines.

Insect lover of the sun,
Joy of thy dominion!
Sailor of the atmosphere;
Swimmer through the waves of air;
Voyager of light and noon;
Epicurean of June;

Wait, I prithee, till I come
Within earshot of thy hum,—
All without is martyrdom.

When the south-wind, in May days,
With a net of shining haze
Silvers the horizon wall,
And, with softness touching all,

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