”
The snow climbs o'er the pasture wall,
It crackles 'neath the moon;
And now the rustic sows the seed,
Damp in his heavy shoon;
And now the building jays are loud
In canopies of June.
The snow climbs o'er the pasture wall,
It crackles 'neath the moon;
And now the rustic sows the seed,
Damp in his heavy shoon;
And now the building jays are loud
In canopies of June.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v28 - Songs, Hymns, Lyrics
»
The crone drew near, and the crone she spake:-
“Nine times flesh and banes shall ache.
Laidly and awesome ye shall wane
Wi' toil, and care, and travail-pain. ”
## p. 16947 (#647) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16947
« Better,” said Karin, “lay me low,
And sink for aye in the water's flow! )
The crone raised her withered hand on high,
And showed her a tree that stood near by.
(
“And take of the bonny fruit,” she said,
"And eat till the seeds are dark and red.
« Count them less, or count them more,
Nine times you shall number o'er; —
“And when each number you shall speak,
Cast seed by seed into the lake. ”
Karin she ate of the fruit sae fine;
'Twas mellow as sand, and sweet as brine.
Seed by seed she let them fall :
The waters rippled over all.
But ilka seed as Karin threw,
Uprose a bubble to her view,-
Uprose a sigh from out the lake,–
As thougii a baby's heart did break.
Twice nine years are come and gone;
Karin the fair she walks her lone.
She sees around on ilka side,
Maiden and mither, wife and bride.
Wan and pale her bonny brow,
Sunken and sad her eyelids now.
Slow her step and heavy her breast,
And never an arm whereon to rest.
The old kirk-porch when Karin spied,
The postern-door was open wide.
<< Wae's me! ” she said: “I'll enter in
And shrive me from my every sin. ”
Twas silence all within the kirk;
The aisle was empty, chill, and mirk.
The chancel-rails were black and bare;
Nae priest, nae penitent, was there.
## p. 16948 (#648) ##########################################
16948
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Karin knelt, and her prayer she said;
But her heart within her was heavy and dead.
Her prayer fell back on the cold gray stone;
It would not rise to heaven alone.
Darker grew the darksome aisle,
Colder felt her heart the while.
“Wae's me! ” she cried, “what is my sin ?
Never I wronged kith nor kin.
“But why do I start and quake wi' fear
Lest I a dreadful doom should hear?
“And what is this light that seems to fall
On the sixth command upon the wall ?
"And who are these I see arise
And look on me wi' stony eyes?
«A shadowy troop, they flock sae fast
The kirk-yard may not hold the last.
“Young and old of ilk degree,
Bairns, and bairnies' bairns, I see.
(
"All I look on either way,
(Mother, mother! ) seem to say.
<< We are souls that might have been,
But for your vanity and sin.
«« (We, in numbers multiplied,
Might have lived, and loved, and died, -
« (Might have served the Lord in this, -
Might have met thy soul in bliss.
« (Mourn for us, then, while you pray,
Who might have been, but never may! ) »
Thus the voices died away,
“Might have been, but never may! »
Karin she left the kirk no more ;
Never she passed the postern-door.
They found her dead at the vesper toll:-
May Heaven in mercy rest her soul!
Danish.
## p. 16949 (#649) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16949
THE MERMAN
‘Dº
O THOU, dear mother, contrive amain
How Marsk Stig's daughter I may gain. ”
She made him, of water, a noble steed,
Whose trappings were formed from rush and reed.
To a young knight changed she then her son;
To Mary's church at full speed he's gone.
His foaming horse to the gate he bound,
And paced the church full three times round.
When in he walked with his plume on high,
The dead men gave from their tombs a sigh;
The priest heard that, and he closed his book –
“Methinks yon knight has a strange wild look. ”
Then laughed the maiden beneath her sleeve:
“If he were my husband I should not grieve. ”
He stepped over benches one and two:
“O Marsk Stig's daughter, I doat on you. ”
He stepped over benches two and three:
“O Marsk Stig's daughter, come home with me. ”
Then said the maid without more ado,-
«Here, take my troth – I will go with you. ”
They went from the church a bridal train,
And danced so gayly across the plain;
They danced till they came to the strand, and then
They were forsaken by maids and men.
(
Now, Marsk Stig's daughter, sit down and rest:
To build a boat I will do my best. ”
He built a boat of the whitest sand,
And away they went from the smiling land;
But when they had crossed the ninth green wave,
Down sunk the boat to the ocean cave!
I caution ye, maids, as well as I can,
Ne'er give your troth to an unknown man.
Translation of George Borrow.
Danish.
## p. 16950 (#650) ##########################################
16950
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE LEGEND OF WALBACH TOWER
[Scene: Fort Constitution, on the island of Newcastle, off Portsmouth, New
Hampshire,, Colonel Walbach commanding. Period, the fall of 1813. )
ORE ill at ease was never man than Walbach, that Lord's day,
M
this way! ”
His pipe, half filled, to shatters flew; he climbed the ridge of knolls,
And turning spy-glass toward the east, swept the long reach of
Shoals.
An hour he watched: behind his back the Portsmouth spires waxed
red;
Its harbor like a field of war, a brazen shield o'erhead.
Another hour: the sundown gun the Sabbath stillness brake;
When loud a second voice hallooed, “Two war-ships hither make! )
Again the colonel scanned the east, where soon white gleams arose:
Behind Star Isle they first appeared, then flashed o'er Smuttynose.
Fleet-winged they left Duck Isle astern; when, rounding full in view,
Lo! in the face of Appledore three Britishers hove to.
(
“To arms, 0 townsfolk! ) Walbach cried. « Behold these black hawk
three!
Whether they pluck old Portsmouth town rests now with you and me.
“The guns of Kittery, and mine, may keep the channel clear,
If but one pintle-stone be raised to ward me in the rear.
“But scarce a score my muster-roll; the earthworks lie unmanned;
(Whereof some mouthing spy, no doubt, has made them understand;)
«And if, ere dawn, their long-boat keels once kiss the nether sands,
My every port-hole's mouth is stopped, and we be in their hands! »
Then straightway from his place upspake the parson of the town:
“Let us beseech Heaven's blessing first! » — and all the folk knelt
down.
"O God, our hands are few and faint; our hope rests all with thee:
Lend us thy hand in this sore strait, - and thine the glory be. ”
«Amen! Amen! ” the chorus rose; “Amen! ) the pines replied;
And through the church-yard's rustling grass an "Amen” softly
sighed.
## p. 16951 (#651) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16951
Astir the village was awhile, with hoof and iron clang;
Then all grew still, save where, aloft, a hundred trowels rang.
None supped, they say, that Lord's-day eve; none slept, they say, that
night:
But all night long, with tireless arms, each toiled as best he might.
Four flax-haired boys of Amazeen the flickering torches stay,
Peopling with Titan shadow-groups the canopy of gray;
Grandsires, with frost above their brows, the steaming mortar mix;
Dame Tarlton's apron, crisp at dawn, helps hod the yellow bricks;
While pilot, cooper, mackerelman, parson and squire as well,
Make haste to plant the pintle-gun, and raise its citadel.
And one who wrought still tells the tale, that as his task he plied,
An unseen fellow-form he felt that labored at his side;
And still to wondering ears relates, that as each brick was squared,
Lo! unseen trowels clinked response, and a new course prepared.
O night of nights! The blinking dawn beheld the marvel done,
And from the new martello boomed the echoing morning gun.
One stormy cloud its lips upblew; and as its thunder rolled,
Old England saw, above the smoke, New England's flag unfold.
Then, slowly tacking to and fro, more near the cruisers made,
To see what force unheralded had flown to Walbach's aid.
“God be our stay,” the parson cried, “who hearkened Israel's wail! »
And as he spake, - all in a line, seaward the ships set sail.
GEORGE HOUGHTON.
THE PIPER OF GIJÓN
"Nº"
ow the dancers take their places;
But the piper, where is he?
“He is burying his mother,
But he'll be here presently. ” —
“And will he come? ) What can he do?
See him now, to duty true,
With his pipes; but ah, how heavy
A heart he carries is only known
To the piper,
To the piper of Gijón!
## p. 16952 (#652) ##########################################
16952
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
When he thinks how desolate
A hearth awaits now his return,
Tears like molten lead his bosom,
In secret overflowing, burn.
But his brothers must be fed;
His the hands must earn their bread:
So his merry tunes, though joy
From his life for aye be gone,
Plays the piper,
Plays the piper of Gijón.
In all the western land was never
Mother held than his more dear;
And now the grave has closed above her,
Parting them forever here.
While he pipes his merry strain,
Sobs he seeks to still in vain
With it mingle, fierce and bitter,
Like the wounded lion's groan.
Hapless piper !
Hapless piper of Gijón!
C
«Faster! ) cry the eager dancers;
«Faster! ) Faster still he plays;
Beneath a smiling face his anguish
To hide, though vainly, he essays.
And seeing him pipe gayly thus,
While flow his tears, as Zoilus
Blind Homer once, some pitiless
Mock the aspect woebegone
Of the piper,
Of the piper of Gijón.
“Ah,” he cries, with bosom heaving,
« Mother, mother, how a sigh
Relieves the breast with anguish laden,”
While he pipes on merrily;
For in his breast the voice he hears,
Now stilled in death, that on his ears
Fell sweetest, that shall ever echo
In the heart, a benison,
Of the piper,
Of the piper of Gijón.
How many another, too, concealing
Beneath a smiling countenance
## p. 16953 (#653) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16953
His unshared agony, pipes gayly
That others to his strains may dance.
So does the poet with his song
Rejoice the world, while he among
Its merry masquers sits apart,
In spirit and in heart alone,
Like the piper,
Like the piper of Gijón.
RAMON DE CAMPOAMOR (Spanish).
Translation of Mary J. Serrano.
OJISTOH
I
AM Ojistoh, I am she, the wife
Of him whose name breathes bravery and life
And courage to the tribe that calls him chief.
I am Ojistoh, his white star, and he
Is land and lake and sky — and soul, to me.
Ah! but they hated him, those Huron braves,
Him who had flung their warriors into graves,
Him who had crushed them underneath his heel,
Whose arm was iron, and whose heart was steel
To all — save me, Ojistoh, chosen wife
Of my great Mohawk, white star of his life.
Ah! but they hated him, and counciled long
With subtle witchcraft how to work him wrong;
How to avenge their dead, and strike him where
His pride was highest, and his fame most fair.
Their hearts grew weak as women at his name;
They dared no war-path since my Mohawk came
With ashen bow and flinten arrow-head
To pierce their craven bodies; but their dead
Must be avenged. Avenged? They dared not walk
In day and meet his deadly tomahawk;
They dared not face his fearless scalping-knife:
So-Niyoh! * — then they thought of me, his wife. .
Oh! evil, evil face of them they sent
With evil Huron speech : “Would I consent
*God, in the Mohawk language.
## p. 16954 (#654) ##########################################
16954
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
To take of wealth ? be queen of all their tribe?
Have wampum ermine ? ) Back I flung the bribe
Into their teeth, and said, “While I have life,
Know this, - Ojistoh is the Mohawk's wife. ”
Wah! how we struggled! But their arms were strong.
They flung me on their pony's back, with thong
Round ankle, wrist, and shoulder. Then upleapt
The one I hated most; his eye he swept
Over my misery, and sneering said,
“Thus, fair Ojistoh, we avenge our dead. ”
And we two rode, rode as a sea wind-chased,
I, bound with buckskin to his hated waist,
He, sneering, laughing, jeering, while he lashed
The horse to foam, as on and on we dashed.
Plunging through creek and river, bush and trail,
On, on we galloped, like a northern gale.
At last, his distant Huron fires aflame
We saw, and nearer, nearer still we came.
I, bound behind him in the captive's place,
Scarcely could see the outline of his face.
I smiled, and laid my cheek against his back:-
“Loose thou my hands,” I said. “This pace let slack.
Forget we now that thou and I are foes.
I like thee well, and wish to clasp thee close;
I like the courage of thine eye and brow;
I like thee better than my Mohawk now. ”
He cut the cords; we ceased our maddened haste.
I wound my arms about his tawny waist;
My hand crept up the buckskin of his belt;
His knife hilt in my burning palm I felt;
One hand caressed his cheek, the other drew
The weapon softly — "I love you, love you,”
I whispered, love you as my life; »
And — buried in his back his scalping knife.
Ha! how I rode, rode as a sea wind-chased,
Mad with my sudden freedom, mad with haste,
Back to my Mohawk and my home; I lashed
That horse to foam, as on and on I dashed.
Plunging through creek and river, bush and trail,
On, on I galloped like a northern gale.
## p. 16955 (#655) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16955
And then my distant Mohawk's fires aflame
I saw, as nearer, nearer still I came,
My hands all wet, stained with a life's red dye,
But pure my soul, pure as those stars on high —
“My Mohawk's pure white star, Ojistoh, still am I. ”
E. PAULINE JOHNSON (“Tekahionwake").
BOS'N HILL
Th*
He wind blows wild on Bos'n Hill,
Far off is heard the ocean's note;
Low overhead the gulls scream shrill,
And homeward scuds each little boat.
Then the dead Bos'n wakes in glee
To hear the storm king's song;
And from the top of mast-pine tree
He blows his whistle loud and long.
The village sailors hear the call,
Lips pale and eyes grow dim:
Well know they, though he pipes them all,
He means but one shall answer him.
He pipes the dead up from their graves,
Whose bones the tansy hides;
He pipes the dead beneath the waves, -
They hear and cleave the rising tides.
But sailors know when next they sail
Beyond the Hilltop's view,
There's one amongst them shall not fail
To join the Bos'n Crew.
JOHN ALBEE.
## p. 16956 (#656) ##########################################
16956
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
PETER RUGG THE BOSTONIAN
I
T"
He mare is pawing by the oak,
The chaise is cool and wide
For Peter Rugg the Bostonian
With his little son beside;
The women loiter at the wheels
In the pleasant summer-tide.
“And when wilt thou be home, father ? »
« And when, good husband, say:
The cloud hangs heavy on the house
What time thou art away. ”
He answers straight, he answers short,
“At noon of the seventh day. ”
“Fail not to come, if God so will,
And the weather be kind and clear. ”
«Farewell, farewell! But who am I
A blockhead rain to fear?
God willing or God unwilling,
I have said it, I will be here. "
He gathers up the sunburnt boy,
And from the gate is sped;
He shakes the spark from the stones below,
The bloom from overhead,
Till the last roofs of his own town
Pass in the morning-red.
Upon a homely mission
North unto York he goes,
Through the long highway broidered thick
With elder-blow and rose;
And sleeps in sound of breakers
At every twilight's close.
Intense upon his heedless head
Frowns Agamenticus,
Knowing of Heaven's challenger
The answer: even thus
The Patience that is hid on high
Doth stoop to master us.
## p. 16957 (#657) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16957
II
Full light are all his parting dreams;
Desire is in his brain;
He tightens at the tavern-post
The fiery creature's rein.
“Now eat thine apple, six-years child!
We face for home again. ”
They had not gone a many mile
With nimble heart and tongue,
When the lone thrush grew silent
The walnut woods among;
And on the lulled horizon
A premonition hung.
The babes at Hampton schoolhouse,
The wife with lads at sea,
Search with a level lifted hand
The distance bodingly;
And farmer folk bid pilgrims in
Under a safe roof-tree.
The mowers mark by Newbury
How low the swallows fly;
They glance across the southern roads
All white and fever-dry.
And the river, anxious at the bend,
Beneath a thinking sky.
But there is one abroad was born
To disbelieve and dare:
Along the highway furiously
He cuts the purple air.
The wind leaps on the startled world
As hounds upon a hare;
With brawl and glare and shudder ope
The sluices of the storm :
The woods break down, the sand upblows
In blinding volley's warm;
The yellow floods in frantic surge
Familiar fields deform.
From evening until morning
His skill will not avail,
## p. 16958 (#658) ##########################################
16958
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
And as he cheers his youngest born,
His cheek is spectre-pale;
For the bonnie mare from courses known
Has drifted like a sail!
INI
On some wild crag he sees the dawn
Unsheathe her scimiter.
“Oh, if it be my mother-earth
And not a foreign star,
Tell me the way to Boston,
And is it near or far?
One watchman lifts his lamp and laughs:
“Ye've many a league to wend. ”
The next doth bless the sleeping boy
From his mad father's end;
A third upon a drawbridge growls,
“Bear ye to larboard, friend. ”
Forward and backward, like a stone
The tides have in their hold,
He dashes east, and then distraught
Darts west as he is told.
(Peter Rugg the Bostonian,
That knew the land of old ! ).
And journeying, and resting scarce
A melancholy space,
Turns to and fro, and round and round,
The frenzy in his face,
And ends alway in angrier mood,
And in a stranger place:
Lost! lost in bayberry thickets
Where Plymouth plovers run,
And where the masts of Salem
Look lordly in the sun;
Lost in the Concord vale, and lost
By rocky Wollaston!
Small thanks have they that guide him,
Awed and aware of blight;
To hear him shriek denial,
It sickens them with fright:-
“They lied to me a month ago
With thy same lie to-night! ”
## p. 16959 (#659) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16959
To-night, to-night, as nights succeed,
He swears at home to bide,
Until, pursued with laughter
Or fied as soon as spied,
The weather-drenched man is known
Over the country-side!
IV
The seventh noon's a memory,
And autumn's closing in;
The quince is fragrant on the bough,
And barley chokes the bin.
“O Boston, Boston, Boston!
And O my kith and kin!
”
The snow climbs o'er the pasture wall,
It crackles 'neath the moon;
And now the rustic sows the seed,
Damp in his heavy shoon;
And now the building jays are loud
In canopies of June.
For season after season
The three are whirled along,
Misled by every instinct
Of light, or scent, or song;
Yea, put them on the surest trail,
The trail is in the wrong.
Upon those wheels in any path
The rain will follow loud,
And he who meets that ghostly man
Will meet a thunder-cloud,
And whosoever speaks with him
May next bespeak his shroud.
Though nigh two hundred years have gone,
Doth Peter Rugg the more
A gentle answer and a true
Of living lips implore:-
“Oh, show me to my own town,
And to my open door! ”
V
Where shall he see his own town,
Once dear unto his feet?
## p. 16960 (#660) ##########################################
16960
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
The psalms, the tankard to the king,
The beacon's cliffy seat,
The gabled neighborhood, the stocks
Set in the middle street ?
How shall he know his own town
If now he clatters through ?
Much men and cities change that have
Another love to woo;
And things occult, incredible,
They find to think and do.
With such new wonders since he went
A broader gossip copes;
Across the crowded triple hills,
And up the harbor slopes,
Tradition's self for him no more
Remembers, watches, hopes.
But ye, 0 unborn children!
(For many a race must thrive
And drip away like icicles
Ere Peter Rugg arrive,)
If of a sudden to your ears
His plaint is blown alive;
If nigh the city, folding in
A little lad that cries,
A wet and weary traveler
Shall fix you with his eyes,
And from the crazy carriage lean
To spend his heart in sighs:-
“That I may enter Boston,
Oh, help it to befall!
There would no fear encompass me,
No evil craft appall:
Ah, but to be in Boston,
GOD WILLING, after all ! »
Ye children, tremble not, but go
And lift his bridle brave
In the one Name, the dread Name,
That doth forgive and save,
And lead him home to Copp's Hill ground,
And to his fathers' grave.
LOUISE I MOGEN GUINEY.
## p. 16961 (#661) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16961
THE MYSTERY OF CRO-A-TÀN *
A. D. 1587
From Colonial Ballads, Sonnets, and Other Verses. ) Copyright 1887, by
Margaret J. Preston. Published by Houghton, Mimin & Co.
I
T"
HE home-bound ships stood out to sea,
And on the island's marge
Sir Richard waited restlessly
To step into the barge.
« The Governor tarrieth long," he chode,
“As he were loath to go:
With food before and want behind,
There should be haste, I trow. "
Even as he spake the Governor came:-
“Nay, fret not, for the men
Have held me back with frantic let,
To have them home again.
« The women weep:- 'Ay, ay, the ships
Will come again (he saith)
Before the May;— before the May
We shall have starved to death!
“I've sworn return by God's dear leave,
I've vowed by Court and Crown,
Nor yet appeased them. Comrade, thou,
Mayhap, canst soothe them down. ”
.
Sir Richard loosed his helm, and stretched
Impatient hands abroad:
“Have ye no trust in man? ” he cried,
“Have ye no faith in God ?
«Your Governor goes, as needs he must,
To bear through royal grace,
Hither, such food-supply that want
May never blench a face.
“Of freest choice ye willed to leave
Whatso ye had of ease;
* The first English colony was sent to America by Sir Walter Raleigh
under the auspices of Sir Richard Grenville. The settlement was made on
Roanoke Island in Albemarle Sound.
XXVIII-1061
## p. 16962 (#662) ##########################################
16962
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
For neither stress of liege nor law
Hath forced you over seas.
« Your Governor leaves fair hostages
As costliest pledge of care,–
His daughter yonder, and her child,
The child Virginia Dare. *
“Come hither, little sweetheart! So!
Thou'lt be the first, I ween,
To bend the knee, and send through me
Thy birthland's virgin fealty
Unto its Virgin Queen.
“And now, good folk, for my com mmands:
If ye are fain to roam
Beyond this island's narrow bounds,
To seek elsewhere a home,-
“Upon some pine-tree's smoothen trunk
Score deep the Indian name
Of tribe or village where ye haunt,
That we may read the same.
"And if ye leave your haven here
Through dire distress or loss,
Cut deep within the wood above
The syin bol of the cross.
"And now on my good blade, I swear,
And seal it with this sign,
That if the fleet that sails to-day
Return not hither by the May,
The fault shall not be mine ! »
II
The breath of spring was on the sea;
Anon the Governor stepped
His good ship's deck right merrily,-
His promise had been kept.
((
See, see! the coast-line comes in view ! »
He heard the mariners shout,-
“We'll drop our anchors in the Sound
Before a star is out! )
* Virginia Dare, the granddaughter of Governor Whyte, was the first Eng-
lish child born in America.
## p. 16963 (#663) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16963
“Now God be praised! ” he inly breathed,
« Who saves from all that harms:
The morrow morn my pretty ones
Will rest within my arms. "
At dawn of day they moored their ships,
And dared the breakers' roar:
What meant it? Not a man was there
To welcome them ashore !
They sprang to find the cabins rude:
The quick green sedge had thrown
Its knotted web o'er every door,
And climbed the chimney-stone.
The spring was choked with winter's leaves,
And feebly gurgled on;
And from the pathway, strewn with rack,
All trace of feet was gone.
Their fingers thrid the matted grass,
If there, perchance, a mound
Unseen might heave the broken turf;
But not a grave was found.
They beat the tangled cypress swamp,
If haply in despair
They might have strayed into its glade,
But found no vestige there.
« The pine! the pine! ) the Governor groaned;
And there each staring man
Read in a maze, one single word,
Deep carven,- CRO-A-TÀN!
But cut above, no cross, no sign,
No symbol of distress;
Naught else beside that mystic line
Within the wilderness!
And where and what was “Cro-a-tàn”?
But not an answer came;
And none of all who read it there
Had ever heard the name.
The Governor drew his jerkin sleeve
Across his misty eyes:
“Some land, may be, of savagery
Beyond the coast that lies;
## p. 16964 (#664) ##########################################
16964
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
“And skulking there the wily foe
In ambush may have lain:
God's mercy! Could such sweetest heads
Lie scalped among the slain ?
“O daughter! daughter! with the thought
My harrowed brain is wild !
Up with the anchors! I must find
The mother and the child! »
They scoured the mainland near and far:
The search no tidings brought;
Till 'mid a forest's dusky tribe
They heard the name they sought.
The kindly natives came with gifts
Of corn and slaughtered deer:
What room for savage treachery
Or foul suspicion here?
Unhindered of a chief or brave,
They searched the wigwam through;
But neither lance nor helm nor spear,
Nor shred of child's nor woman's gear,
Could furnish forth a clue.
How could a hundred souls be caught
Straight out of life, nor find
Device through which to mark their fate,
Or leave some hint behind ?
Had winter's ocean inland rolled
An eagre's deadly spray,
That overwhelmed the island's breadth,
And swept them all away?
In vain, in vain, their heart-sick search!
No tidings reached them more:
No record save that silent word
Upon that silent shore.
The mystery rests a mystery still,
Unsolved of mortal man
Sphinx-like untold, the ages hold
The tale of CRO-A-TÀN!
MARGARET J. PRESTON.
## p. 16965 (#665) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16965
POEMS FROM ORIENTAL LANGUAGES
IT IS ALL ONE IN THE TURKISH
(Turkish)
I
MEDDLE with the Future none; I travel not into the Farness,
And, for all vain desires of mine, still vainer world, I hand them
over t'ye:
I sometimes carve, but mostly starve; some scoundrel owns my horse and
harness :
I am, Ya Hu, the Sultan of the pillaged Realm of Rags and Poverty.
I work, or don't: all's one, that's clear; when once I am bowstrung,
shot, or sabred,
I'll sleep as soundly, never fear, as though I had ne'er done aught
but labored.
By SHERMIDEDEDEH, Grand Fakir (King of the Beggars).
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
PERSIAN EPIGRAMS
(Fourteenth Century)
NAU
AUGHT, I hear thee say,
Can fill the greedy eye;
Yet a little clay
Will fill it by-and-by.
Thy thoughts are but Silver when told:
Locked up in thy breast they are Gold.
The steed to the man who bestrides it newly,
The sabre to him who best can wield it,
The damsel to him who has wooed her truly,
And the province to him who refuses to yield it.
AN HOUR of Good, a day of 111,
This is the lot of mourning Man,
Who leaves the world whene'er he will,
But goes to Heaven whene'er he
can.
Touch all that falls under thine eyes;
And beware
That thou buy not thy bird while he flies
In the air.
## p. 16966 (#666) ##########################################
16966
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
DEAD SEA FRUIT
(Turkish - Fifteenth Century)
TRUST
-
RUST not the World or Time,- they are liar-mates;
YA HU! *
Wealth borrows wings and woman goes her way:
YA HU!
Into the old house with the ebon gatest
YA HU!
Who enters is but guest and must not stay.
YA HU!
Look not upon the sun, for that shall die;
YA HU!
Love not the roses, for they must decay:
YA HU!
The child is caught by all that dupes the eye;
YA HU!
The man should gird his loins,— he cannot stay!
YA HU!
From moon to moon Time rolleth as a river;
YA HU!
Though night will soon o'erdark thy life's last ray,
YA HU!
Earth is the prison of the True Believer,
YA HU!
And who in prison stipulates to stay?
YA HU!
Up, dreamer, up! What takest Life to be?
YA HU!
Are centuries not made of night and day?
YA HU!
Call now on God while he will list to thee!
YA HU!
The Caravan moves on; it will not stay!
YA Hu!
Remember Him whom Heaven and Earth adore!
YA HU!
Fast, and deny thyself; give alms and pray:
YA HU!
* This refrain is the cry of the Howling Dervishes.
+ The world, which we enter by the gate of Non-Existence, and depart from
by that of Death.
## p. 16967 (#667) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16967
Thy bark drifts hourly towards the Phantom-shore,
YA HU!
The sails are up, the vessel will not stay!
YA HU!
As yet the Accusing Scroll is incomplete;
YA HU!
But Scales and Bridge * maintain their dread array;
YA HU!
Now art thou here, now at the Judgment-Seat!
YA HU!
For death and justice brook not long delay!
YA HU!
Oh, trust Hudayi! he alone from birth
YA HU!
Is guided by the Guardian Four alway; t
YA HU!
He is alone the friend of God on earth,
YA HU!
Who visits earth, but doth not sigh to stay,
YA HU!
HUDAYI II. , OF ANATOLIA.
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
TO SULTAN MURAD II.
(Turkish)
E
ARTH sees in thee
Her Destiny: 1
Thou standest as the Pole - and she
Resembles
The Needle, for she turns to thee,
And trembles.
.
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
* « The Mahometans hold that the Balance wherein all things shall be
weighed on the Judgment Day is of so vast a size that its two scales will
contain both heaven and earth, and that one scale will hang over Paradise,
and the other over hell.
The Bridge, called in Arabic al Sirât, is,
they say, laid over the midst of hell, and is finer than a hair and sharper than
the edge of a sword, and those who cannot pass this bridge fall into hell. ”
-Sale's PRELIM. Disc.
+ The four Khalifs next in succession to Mohammed; viz. , Omar, Ali,
Osman, and Abubekhr.
| Murad signifies destiny.
## p. 16968 (#668) ##########################################
16968
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE DOWRY
(Nubian - Fifteenth Century)
A
CHANGE came over my husband's mind :
He loved me once, and was true and kind;
His heart went astray, he wished me away,
But he had no money my dower to pay.
Sing Durwadeega, Durwadee, *
Oh dear to me is Durwadee.
For blessed be Allah! he's old and poor,
And my cocks and hens were his only store;
So he kept me still, for well he knew
If I went, that the cocks and hens went too.
Sing Durwadeega, Durwadee,
Oh dear to me is Durwadee.
But I saw him pining day by day,
As he wished his poor wife far away;
So I went my rival home to call,
And gave her the hen-house, and him, and all.
Sing Durwadeega, Durwadee,
Oh dear to me is Durwadee.
Then he tore his turban off his brow,
And swore I never should leave him now,
Till the death-men combed his burial locks:
Then blessed for ever be hens and cocks.
Sing Durwadeega, Durwadee,
Oh dear to me is Durwadee.
FRONTI NULLA FIDES
(Turkish)
B
EWARE of blindly trusting
To outward art
And specious sheen,
For Vice is oft incrusting
The hollow heart
Within unseen.
* This refrain is Nubian for My henhouse, oh, my henhouse ); this hen-
house being the property of the wife, and a part of the dowry which the
husband is obliged to return to her, in case of a divorce.
## p. 16969 (#669) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16969
See that black pool below thee!
There Heaven sleeps
In golden fire;
Yet, whatsoe'er they show thee,
The mirror's deeps
Are slime and mire.
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
TO A TURKISH AUTHOR
T.
(Turkish)
THAT none may dub thee tactless dund'rhead,
Confine thy pen to light chit-chat,
And rattle on as might a letter!
For ninety-nine of every hundred
Hate Learning, and, what's more than that,
The hundredth man likes berresh * better!
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
Foozooli.
MEMORY
(Turkish)
He characters the slight reed traces
Remain indelible through ages;
Strange, then, that Time so soon effaces
What Feeling writes on Memory's pages!
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
Foozooli.
THE
TO AMÍNE, ON SEEING HER ABOUT TO VEIL HER MIRROR
VE
(Turkish)
EIL not thy mirror, sweet Amine,
Till night shall also veil each star:
Thou seest a two-fold marvel there,-
The only face as fair as thine,
The only eyes that near or far
Can gaze on thine without despair!
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
Foozooli.
* A preparation of opium.
## p. 16970 (#670) ##########################################
16970
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
LAMENT
(Turkish - Eleventh Century)
LIKE
IKE a cypress-tree,
Mateless in a death-black valley,
Where no lily springeth,
Where no bulbul singeth,
Whence gazelle is never seen to sally,
Such am I: Woe is me!
Poor, sad, all unknown,
Lone, lone, lone!
Like a wandering bee,
Alien from his hive and fellows,
Humming moanful ditties;-
Far from men and cities
Roaming glades which autumn rarely mellows,
Such am I: Woe is me!
Poor, sad, all unknown,
Lone, lone, lone!
Like a bark at sea,
All whose crew by night have perished,
Drifting on the ocean
Still with shoreward motion,
Though none live by whom Hope's throb is cherished,
Such am I: Woe is me!
Poor, sad, all unknown,
Lone, lone, lone!
So I pine and dree
Till the night that knows no morrow
Sees me wrapped in clay-vest:
Thou, chill world, that gavest
Me the bitter boon alone of Sorrow,
Give, then, a grave to me,
Dark, sad, all unknown,
Lone, lone, lone!
)
From the Firak-Nameh' (The Farewell Book) of
AHI, THE SIGHER.
## p. 16971 (#671) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16971
PASSAGE
(Arabian - Twelfth Century)
I
SEE not the strand,
For you all understand
That I pass for a mariner;
None can be barrener
Either of houses or land:
But I sail up and down a Red Sea;
For the wine that I lift to a lip
Rather given to curl in the way called derisive,
Whenever a brute is disposed to dispute
My pretensions to sip
Everlastingly, is, I've
A notion,
An ocean
To me and to all. jolly bibbers like me;
And the glass is my ship.
From the Kafwut-Nameh' (Book of Rubies).
Translation in Dublin University Magazine. Transcribed by
GHALIB.
TO MIRIAM, ON HER HAIR
(Arabian — Fifteenth Century)
E
THIOPIANS are thy locks:
In each hair
Lurks a snare
Worse than Afric's gulfs and rocks.
They who swear
By that hair
Swear the Koran's oath aright:
By the black Abyss of Night!
SELMAN.
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
## p. 16972 (#672) ##########################################
16972
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
EPIGRAM
To YUSUF BEN ALI BEN YACOOB
I
(Arabian — Fifteenth Century)
WROTE, Y
is a wretched proser,
Though tolerable verse-composer:
But 'twas not thee I satirized;
And I confess I feel surprised
To see thee thus take fire like nitre;
For thou art wrong, and thou shouldst know it;
Thou art indeed a poor prose-writer,
But not a tolerable poet.
ScheichI II.
Surnamed DJAGHIDSHURDSHI.
The crone drew near, and the crone she spake:-
“Nine times flesh and banes shall ache.
Laidly and awesome ye shall wane
Wi' toil, and care, and travail-pain. ”
## p. 16947 (#647) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16947
« Better,” said Karin, “lay me low,
And sink for aye in the water's flow! )
The crone raised her withered hand on high,
And showed her a tree that stood near by.
(
“And take of the bonny fruit,” she said,
"And eat till the seeds are dark and red.
« Count them less, or count them more,
Nine times you shall number o'er; —
“And when each number you shall speak,
Cast seed by seed into the lake. ”
Karin she ate of the fruit sae fine;
'Twas mellow as sand, and sweet as brine.
Seed by seed she let them fall :
The waters rippled over all.
But ilka seed as Karin threw,
Uprose a bubble to her view,-
Uprose a sigh from out the lake,–
As thougii a baby's heart did break.
Twice nine years are come and gone;
Karin the fair she walks her lone.
She sees around on ilka side,
Maiden and mither, wife and bride.
Wan and pale her bonny brow,
Sunken and sad her eyelids now.
Slow her step and heavy her breast,
And never an arm whereon to rest.
The old kirk-porch when Karin spied,
The postern-door was open wide.
<< Wae's me! ” she said: “I'll enter in
And shrive me from my every sin. ”
Twas silence all within the kirk;
The aisle was empty, chill, and mirk.
The chancel-rails were black and bare;
Nae priest, nae penitent, was there.
## p. 16948 (#648) ##########################################
16948
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Karin knelt, and her prayer she said;
But her heart within her was heavy and dead.
Her prayer fell back on the cold gray stone;
It would not rise to heaven alone.
Darker grew the darksome aisle,
Colder felt her heart the while.
“Wae's me! ” she cried, “what is my sin ?
Never I wronged kith nor kin.
“But why do I start and quake wi' fear
Lest I a dreadful doom should hear?
“And what is this light that seems to fall
On the sixth command upon the wall ?
"And who are these I see arise
And look on me wi' stony eyes?
«A shadowy troop, they flock sae fast
The kirk-yard may not hold the last.
“Young and old of ilk degree,
Bairns, and bairnies' bairns, I see.
(
"All I look on either way,
(Mother, mother! ) seem to say.
<< We are souls that might have been,
But for your vanity and sin.
«« (We, in numbers multiplied,
Might have lived, and loved, and died, -
« (Might have served the Lord in this, -
Might have met thy soul in bliss.
« (Mourn for us, then, while you pray,
Who might have been, but never may! ) »
Thus the voices died away,
“Might have been, but never may! »
Karin she left the kirk no more ;
Never she passed the postern-door.
They found her dead at the vesper toll:-
May Heaven in mercy rest her soul!
Danish.
## p. 16949 (#649) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16949
THE MERMAN
‘Dº
O THOU, dear mother, contrive amain
How Marsk Stig's daughter I may gain. ”
She made him, of water, a noble steed,
Whose trappings were formed from rush and reed.
To a young knight changed she then her son;
To Mary's church at full speed he's gone.
His foaming horse to the gate he bound,
And paced the church full three times round.
When in he walked with his plume on high,
The dead men gave from their tombs a sigh;
The priest heard that, and he closed his book –
“Methinks yon knight has a strange wild look. ”
Then laughed the maiden beneath her sleeve:
“If he were my husband I should not grieve. ”
He stepped over benches one and two:
“O Marsk Stig's daughter, I doat on you. ”
He stepped over benches two and three:
“O Marsk Stig's daughter, come home with me. ”
Then said the maid without more ado,-
«Here, take my troth – I will go with you. ”
They went from the church a bridal train,
And danced so gayly across the plain;
They danced till they came to the strand, and then
They were forsaken by maids and men.
(
Now, Marsk Stig's daughter, sit down and rest:
To build a boat I will do my best. ”
He built a boat of the whitest sand,
And away they went from the smiling land;
But when they had crossed the ninth green wave,
Down sunk the boat to the ocean cave!
I caution ye, maids, as well as I can,
Ne'er give your troth to an unknown man.
Translation of George Borrow.
Danish.
## p. 16950 (#650) ##########################################
16950
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE LEGEND OF WALBACH TOWER
[Scene: Fort Constitution, on the island of Newcastle, off Portsmouth, New
Hampshire,, Colonel Walbach commanding. Period, the fall of 1813. )
ORE ill at ease was never man than Walbach, that Lord's day,
M
this way! ”
His pipe, half filled, to shatters flew; he climbed the ridge of knolls,
And turning spy-glass toward the east, swept the long reach of
Shoals.
An hour he watched: behind his back the Portsmouth spires waxed
red;
Its harbor like a field of war, a brazen shield o'erhead.
Another hour: the sundown gun the Sabbath stillness brake;
When loud a second voice hallooed, “Two war-ships hither make! )
Again the colonel scanned the east, where soon white gleams arose:
Behind Star Isle they first appeared, then flashed o'er Smuttynose.
Fleet-winged they left Duck Isle astern; when, rounding full in view,
Lo! in the face of Appledore three Britishers hove to.
(
“To arms, 0 townsfolk! ) Walbach cried. « Behold these black hawk
three!
Whether they pluck old Portsmouth town rests now with you and me.
“The guns of Kittery, and mine, may keep the channel clear,
If but one pintle-stone be raised to ward me in the rear.
“But scarce a score my muster-roll; the earthworks lie unmanned;
(Whereof some mouthing spy, no doubt, has made them understand;)
«And if, ere dawn, their long-boat keels once kiss the nether sands,
My every port-hole's mouth is stopped, and we be in their hands! »
Then straightway from his place upspake the parson of the town:
“Let us beseech Heaven's blessing first! » — and all the folk knelt
down.
"O God, our hands are few and faint; our hope rests all with thee:
Lend us thy hand in this sore strait, - and thine the glory be. ”
«Amen! Amen! ” the chorus rose; “Amen! ) the pines replied;
And through the church-yard's rustling grass an "Amen” softly
sighed.
## p. 16951 (#651) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16951
Astir the village was awhile, with hoof and iron clang;
Then all grew still, save where, aloft, a hundred trowels rang.
None supped, they say, that Lord's-day eve; none slept, they say, that
night:
But all night long, with tireless arms, each toiled as best he might.
Four flax-haired boys of Amazeen the flickering torches stay,
Peopling with Titan shadow-groups the canopy of gray;
Grandsires, with frost above their brows, the steaming mortar mix;
Dame Tarlton's apron, crisp at dawn, helps hod the yellow bricks;
While pilot, cooper, mackerelman, parson and squire as well,
Make haste to plant the pintle-gun, and raise its citadel.
And one who wrought still tells the tale, that as his task he plied,
An unseen fellow-form he felt that labored at his side;
And still to wondering ears relates, that as each brick was squared,
Lo! unseen trowels clinked response, and a new course prepared.
O night of nights! The blinking dawn beheld the marvel done,
And from the new martello boomed the echoing morning gun.
One stormy cloud its lips upblew; and as its thunder rolled,
Old England saw, above the smoke, New England's flag unfold.
Then, slowly tacking to and fro, more near the cruisers made,
To see what force unheralded had flown to Walbach's aid.
“God be our stay,” the parson cried, “who hearkened Israel's wail! »
And as he spake, - all in a line, seaward the ships set sail.
GEORGE HOUGHTON.
THE PIPER OF GIJÓN
"Nº"
ow the dancers take their places;
But the piper, where is he?
“He is burying his mother,
But he'll be here presently. ” —
“And will he come? ) What can he do?
See him now, to duty true,
With his pipes; but ah, how heavy
A heart he carries is only known
To the piper,
To the piper of Gijón!
## p. 16952 (#652) ##########################################
16952
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
When he thinks how desolate
A hearth awaits now his return,
Tears like molten lead his bosom,
In secret overflowing, burn.
But his brothers must be fed;
His the hands must earn their bread:
So his merry tunes, though joy
From his life for aye be gone,
Plays the piper,
Plays the piper of Gijón.
In all the western land was never
Mother held than his more dear;
And now the grave has closed above her,
Parting them forever here.
While he pipes his merry strain,
Sobs he seeks to still in vain
With it mingle, fierce and bitter,
Like the wounded lion's groan.
Hapless piper !
Hapless piper of Gijón!
C
«Faster! ) cry the eager dancers;
«Faster! ) Faster still he plays;
Beneath a smiling face his anguish
To hide, though vainly, he essays.
And seeing him pipe gayly thus,
While flow his tears, as Zoilus
Blind Homer once, some pitiless
Mock the aspect woebegone
Of the piper,
Of the piper of Gijón.
“Ah,” he cries, with bosom heaving,
« Mother, mother, how a sigh
Relieves the breast with anguish laden,”
While he pipes on merrily;
For in his breast the voice he hears,
Now stilled in death, that on his ears
Fell sweetest, that shall ever echo
In the heart, a benison,
Of the piper,
Of the piper of Gijón.
How many another, too, concealing
Beneath a smiling countenance
## p. 16953 (#653) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16953
His unshared agony, pipes gayly
That others to his strains may dance.
So does the poet with his song
Rejoice the world, while he among
Its merry masquers sits apart,
In spirit and in heart alone,
Like the piper,
Like the piper of Gijón.
RAMON DE CAMPOAMOR (Spanish).
Translation of Mary J. Serrano.
OJISTOH
I
AM Ojistoh, I am she, the wife
Of him whose name breathes bravery and life
And courage to the tribe that calls him chief.
I am Ojistoh, his white star, and he
Is land and lake and sky — and soul, to me.
Ah! but they hated him, those Huron braves,
Him who had flung their warriors into graves,
Him who had crushed them underneath his heel,
Whose arm was iron, and whose heart was steel
To all — save me, Ojistoh, chosen wife
Of my great Mohawk, white star of his life.
Ah! but they hated him, and counciled long
With subtle witchcraft how to work him wrong;
How to avenge their dead, and strike him where
His pride was highest, and his fame most fair.
Their hearts grew weak as women at his name;
They dared no war-path since my Mohawk came
With ashen bow and flinten arrow-head
To pierce their craven bodies; but their dead
Must be avenged. Avenged? They dared not walk
In day and meet his deadly tomahawk;
They dared not face his fearless scalping-knife:
So-Niyoh! * — then they thought of me, his wife. .
Oh! evil, evil face of them they sent
With evil Huron speech : “Would I consent
*God, in the Mohawk language.
## p. 16954 (#654) ##########################################
16954
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
To take of wealth ? be queen of all their tribe?
Have wampum ermine ? ) Back I flung the bribe
Into their teeth, and said, “While I have life,
Know this, - Ojistoh is the Mohawk's wife. ”
Wah! how we struggled! But their arms were strong.
They flung me on their pony's back, with thong
Round ankle, wrist, and shoulder. Then upleapt
The one I hated most; his eye he swept
Over my misery, and sneering said,
“Thus, fair Ojistoh, we avenge our dead. ”
And we two rode, rode as a sea wind-chased,
I, bound with buckskin to his hated waist,
He, sneering, laughing, jeering, while he lashed
The horse to foam, as on and on we dashed.
Plunging through creek and river, bush and trail,
On, on we galloped, like a northern gale.
At last, his distant Huron fires aflame
We saw, and nearer, nearer still we came.
I, bound behind him in the captive's place,
Scarcely could see the outline of his face.
I smiled, and laid my cheek against his back:-
“Loose thou my hands,” I said. “This pace let slack.
Forget we now that thou and I are foes.
I like thee well, and wish to clasp thee close;
I like the courage of thine eye and brow;
I like thee better than my Mohawk now. ”
He cut the cords; we ceased our maddened haste.
I wound my arms about his tawny waist;
My hand crept up the buckskin of his belt;
His knife hilt in my burning palm I felt;
One hand caressed his cheek, the other drew
The weapon softly — "I love you, love you,”
I whispered, love you as my life; »
And — buried in his back his scalping knife.
Ha! how I rode, rode as a sea wind-chased,
Mad with my sudden freedom, mad with haste,
Back to my Mohawk and my home; I lashed
That horse to foam, as on and on I dashed.
Plunging through creek and river, bush and trail,
On, on I galloped like a northern gale.
## p. 16955 (#655) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16955
And then my distant Mohawk's fires aflame
I saw, as nearer, nearer still I came,
My hands all wet, stained with a life's red dye,
But pure my soul, pure as those stars on high —
“My Mohawk's pure white star, Ojistoh, still am I. ”
E. PAULINE JOHNSON (“Tekahionwake").
BOS'N HILL
Th*
He wind blows wild on Bos'n Hill,
Far off is heard the ocean's note;
Low overhead the gulls scream shrill,
And homeward scuds each little boat.
Then the dead Bos'n wakes in glee
To hear the storm king's song;
And from the top of mast-pine tree
He blows his whistle loud and long.
The village sailors hear the call,
Lips pale and eyes grow dim:
Well know they, though he pipes them all,
He means but one shall answer him.
He pipes the dead up from their graves,
Whose bones the tansy hides;
He pipes the dead beneath the waves, -
They hear and cleave the rising tides.
But sailors know when next they sail
Beyond the Hilltop's view,
There's one amongst them shall not fail
To join the Bos'n Crew.
JOHN ALBEE.
## p. 16956 (#656) ##########################################
16956
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
PETER RUGG THE BOSTONIAN
I
T"
He mare is pawing by the oak,
The chaise is cool and wide
For Peter Rugg the Bostonian
With his little son beside;
The women loiter at the wheels
In the pleasant summer-tide.
“And when wilt thou be home, father ? »
« And when, good husband, say:
The cloud hangs heavy on the house
What time thou art away. ”
He answers straight, he answers short,
“At noon of the seventh day. ”
“Fail not to come, if God so will,
And the weather be kind and clear. ”
«Farewell, farewell! But who am I
A blockhead rain to fear?
God willing or God unwilling,
I have said it, I will be here. "
He gathers up the sunburnt boy,
And from the gate is sped;
He shakes the spark from the stones below,
The bloom from overhead,
Till the last roofs of his own town
Pass in the morning-red.
Upon a homely mission
North unto York he goes,
Through the long highway broidered thick
With elder-blow and rose;
And sleeps in sound of breakers
At every twilight's close.
Intense upon his heedless head
Frowns Agamenticus,
Knowing of Heaven's challenger
The answer: even thus
The Patience that is hid on high
Doth stoop to master us.
## p. 16957 (#657) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16957
II
Full light are all his parting dreams;
Desire is in his brain;
He tightens at the tavern-post
The fiery creature's rein.
“Now eat thine apple, six-years child!
We face for home again. ”
They had not gone a many mile
With nimble heart and tongue,
When the lone thrush grew silent
The walnut woods among;
And on the lulled horizon
A premonition hung.
The babes at Hampton schoolhouse,
The wife with lads at sea,
Search with a level lifted hand
The distance bodingly;
And farmer folk bid pilgrims in
Under a safe roof-tree.
The mowers mark by Newbury
How low the swallows fly;
They glance across the southern roads
All white and fever-dry.
And the river, anxious at the bend,
Beneath a thinking sky.
But there is one abroad was born
To disbelieve and dare:
Along the highway furiously
He cuts the purple air.
The wind leaps on the startled world
As hounds upon a hare;
With brawl and glare and shudder ope
The sluices of the storm :
The woods break down, the sand upblows
In blinding volley's warm;
The yellow floods in frantic surge
Familiar fields deform.
From evening until morning
His skill will not avail,
## p. 16958 (#658) ##########################################
16958
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
And as he cheers his youngest born,
His cheek is spectre-pale;
For the bonnie mare from courses known
Has drifted like a sail!
INI
On some wild crag he sees the dawn
Unsheathe her scimiter.
“Oh, if it be my mother-earth
And not a foreign star,
Tell me the way to Boston,
And is it near or far?
One watchman lifts his lamp and laughs:
“Ye've many a league to wend. ”
The next doth bless the sleeping boy
From his mad father's end;
A third upon a drawbridge growls,
“Bear ye to larboard, friend. ”
Forward and backward, like a stone
The tides have in their hold,
He dashes east, and then distraught
Darts west as he is told.
(Peter Rugg the Bostonian,
That knew the land of old ! ).
And journeying, and resting scarce
A melancholy space,
Turns to and fro, and round and round,
The frenzy in his face,
And ends alway in angrier mood,
And in a stranger place:
Lost! lost in bayberry thickets
Where Plymouth plovers run,
And where the masts of Salem
Look lordly in the sun;
Lost in the Concord vale, and lost
By rocky Wollaston!
Small thanks have they that guide him,
Awed and aware of blight;
To hear him shriek denial,
It sickens them with fright:-
“They lied to me a month ago
With thy same lie to-night! ”
## p. 16959 (#659) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16959
To-night, to-night, as nights succeed,
He swears at home to bide,
Until, pursued with laughter
Or fied as soon as spied,
The weather-drenched man is known
Over the country-side!
IV
The seventh noon's a memory,
And autumn's closing in;
The quince is fragrant on the bough,
And barley chokes the bin.
“O Boston, Boston, Boston!
And O my kith and kin!
”
The snow climbs o'er the pasture wall,
It crackles 'neath the moon;
And now the rustic sows the seed,
Damp in his heavy shoon;
And now the building jays are loud
In canopies of June.
For season after season
The three are whirled along,
Misled by every instinct
Of light, or scent, or song;
Yea, put them on the surest trail,
The trail is in the wrong.
Upon those wheels in any path
The rain will follow loud,
And he who meets that ghostly man
Will meet a thunder-cloud,
And whosoever speaks with him
May next bespeak his shroud.
Though nigh two hundred years have gone,
Doth Peter Rugg the more
A gentle answer and a true
Of living lips implore:-
“Oh, show me to my own town,
And to my open door! ”
V
Where shall he see his own town,
Once dear unto his feet?
## p. 16960 (#660) ##########################################
16960
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
The psalms, the tankard to the king,
The beacon's cliffy seat,
The gabled neighborhood, the stocks
Set in the middle street ?
How shall he know his own town
If now he clatters through ?
Much men and cities change that have
Another love to woo;
And things occult, incredible,
They find to think and do.
With such new wonders since he went
A broader gossip copes;
Across the crowded triple hills,
And up the harbor slopes,
Tradition's self for him no more
Remembers, watches, hopes.
But ye, 0 unborn children!
(For many a race must thrive
And drip away like icicles
Ere Peter Rugg arrive,)
If of a sudden to your ears
His plaint is blown alive;
If nigh the city, folding in
A little lad that cries,
A wet and weary traveler
Shall fix you with his eyes,
And from the crazy carriage lean
To spend his heart in sighs:-
“That I may enter Boston,
Oh, help it to befall!
There would no fear encompass me,
No evil craft appall:
Ah, but to be in Boston,
GOD WILLING, after all ! »
Ye children, tremble not, but go
And lift his bridle brave
In the one Name, the dread Name,
That doth forgive and save,
And lead him home to Copp's Hill ground,
And to his fathers' grave.
LOUISE I MOGEN GUINEY.
## p. 16961 (#661) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16961
THE MYSTERY OF CRO-A-TÀN *
A. D. 1587
From Colonial Ballads, Sonnets, and Other Verses. ) Copyright 1887, by
Margaret J. Preston. Published by Houghton, Mimin & Co.
I
T"
HE home-bound ships stood out to sea,
And on the island's marge
Sir Richard waited restlessly
To step into the barge.
« The Governor tarrieth long," he chode,
“As he were loath to go:
With food before and want behind,
There should be haste, I trow. "
Even as he spake the Governor came:-
“Nay, fret not, for the men
Have held me back with frantic let,
To have them home again.
« The women weep:- 'Ay, ay, the ships
Will come again (he saith)
Before the May;— before the May
We shall have starved to death!
“I've sworn return by God's dear leave,
I've vowed by Court and Crown,
Nor yet appeased them. Comrade, thou,
Mayhap, canst soothe them down. ”
.
Sir Richard loosed his helm, and stretched
Impatient hands abroad:
“Have ye no trust in man? ” he cried,
“Have ye no faith in God ?
«Your Governor goes, as needs he must,
To bear through royal grace,
Hither, such food-supply that want
May never blench a face.
“Of freest choice ye willed to leave
Whatso ye had of ease;
* The first English colony was sent to America by Sir Walter Raleigh
under the auspices of Sir Richard Grenville. The settlement was made on
Roanoke Island in Albemarle Sound.
XXVIII-1061
## p. 16962 (#662) ##########################################
16962
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
For neither stress of liege nor law
Hath forced you over seas.
« Your Governor leaves fair hostages
As costliest pledge of care,–
His daughter yonder, and her child,
The child Virginia Dare. *
“Come hither, little sweetheart! So!
Thou'lt be the first, I ween,
To bend the knee, and send through me
Thy birthland's virgin fealty
Unto its Virgin Queen.
“And now, good folk, for my com mmands:
If ye are fain to roam
Beyond this island's narrow bounds,
To seek elsewhere a home,-
“Upon some pine-tree's smoothen trunk
Score deep the Indian name
Of tribe or village where ye haunt,
That we may read the same.
"And if ye leave your haven here
Through dire distress or loss,
Cut deep within the wood above
The syin bol of the cross.
"And now on my good blade, I swear,
And seal it with this sign,
That if the fleet that sails to-day
Return not hither by the May,
The fault shall not be mine ! »
II
The breath of spring was on the sea;
Anon the Governor stepped
His good ship's deck right merrily,-
His promise had been kept.
((
See, see! the coast-line comes in view ! »
He heard the mariners shout,-
“We'll drop our anchors in the Sound
Before a star is out! )
* Virginia Dare, the granddaughter of Governor Whyte, was the first Eng-
lish child born in America.
## p. 16963 (#663) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16963
“Now God be praised! ” he inly breathed,
« Who saves from all that harms:
The morrow morn my pretty ones
Will rest within my arms. "
At dawn of day they moored their ships,
And dared the breakers' roar:
What meant it? Not a man was there
To welcome them ashore !
They sprang to find the cabins rude:
The quick green sedge had thrown
Its knotted web o'er every door,
And climbed the chimney-stone.
The spring was choked with winter's leaves,
And feebly gurgled on;
And from the pathway, strewn with rack,
All trace of feet was gone.
Their fingers thrid the matted grass,
If there, perchance, a mound
Unseen might heave the broken turf;
But not a grave was found.
They beat the tangled cypress swamp,
If haply in despair
They might have strayed into its glade,
But found no vestige there.
« The pine! the pine! ) the Governor groaned;
And there each staring man
Read in a maze, one single word,
Deep carven,- CRO-A-TÀN!
But cut above, no cross, no sign,
No symbol of distress;
Naught else beside that mystic line
Within the wilderness!
And where and what was “Cro-a-tàn”?
But not an answer came;
And none of all who read it there
Had ever heard the name.
The Governor drew his jerkin sleeve
Across his misty eyes:
“Some land, may be, of savagery
Beyond the coast that lies;
## p. 16964 (#664) ##########################################
16964
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
“And skulking there the wily foe
In ambush may have lain:
God's mercy! Could such sweetest heads
Lie scalped among the slain ?
“O daughter! daughter! with the thought
My harrowed brain is wild !
Up with the anchors! I must find
The mother and the child! »
They scoured the mainland near and far:
The search no tidings brought;
Till 'mid a forest's dusky tribe
They heard the name they sought.
The kindly natives came with gifts
Of corn and slaughtered deer:
What room for savage treachery
Or foul suspicion here?
Unhindered of a chief or brave,
They searched the wigwam through;
But neither lance nor helm nor spear,
Nor shred of child's nor woman's gear,
Could furnish forth a clue.
How could a hundred souls be caught
Straight out of life, nor find
Device through which to mark their fate,
Or leave some hint behind ?
Had winter's ocean inland rolled
An eagre's deadly spray,
That overwhelmed the island's breadth,
And swept them all away?
In vain, in vain, their heart-sick search!
No tidings reached them more:
No record save that silent word
Upon that silent shore.
The mystery rests a mystery still,
Unsolved of mortal man
Sphinx-like untold, the ages hold
The tale of CRO-A-TÀN!
MARGARET J. PRESTON.
## p. 16965 (#665) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16965
POEMS FROM ORIENTAL LANGUAGES
IT IS ALL ONE IN THE TURKISH
(Turkish)
I
MEDDLE with the Future none; I travel not into the Farness,
And, for all vain desires of mine, still vainer world, I hand them
over t'ye:
I sometimes carve, but mostly starve; some scoundrel owns my horse and
harness :
I am, Ya Hu, the Sultan of the pillaged Realm of Rags and Poverty.
I work, or don't: all's one, that's clear; when once I am bowstrung,
shot, or sabred,
I'll sleep as soundly, never fear, as though I had ne'er done aught
but labored.
By SHERMIDEDEDEH, Grand Fakir (King of the Beggars).
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
PERSIAN EPIGRAMS
(Fourteenth Century)
NAU
AUGHT, I hear thee say,
Can fill the greedy eye;
Yet a little clay
Will fill it by-and-by.
Thy thoughts are but Silver when told:
Locked up in thy breast they are Gold.
The steed to the man who bestrides it newly,
The sabre to him who best can wield it,
The damsel to him who has wooed her truly,
And the province to him who refuses to yield it.
AN HOUR of Good, a day of 111,
This is the lot of mourning Man,
Who leaves the world whene'er he will,
But goes to Heaven whene'er he
can.
Touch all that falls under thine eyes;
And beware
That thou buy not thy bird while he flies
In the air.
## p. 16966 (#666) ##########################################
16966
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
DEAD SEA FRUIT
(Turkish - Fifteenth Century)
TRUST
-
RUST not the World or Time,- they are liar-mates;
YA HU! *
Wealth borrows wings and woman goes her way:
YA HU!
Into the old house with the ebon gatest
YA HU!
Who enters is but guest and must not stay.
YA HU!
Look not upon the sun, for that shall die;
YA HU!
Love not the roses, for they must decay:
YA HU!
The child is caught by all that dupes the eye;
YA HU!
The man should gird his loins,— he cannot stay!
YA HU!
From moon to moon Time rolleth as a river;
YA HU!
Though night will soon o'erdark thy life's last ray,
YA HU!
Earth is the prison of the True Believer,
YA HU!
And who in prison stipulates to stay?
YA HU!
Up, dreamer, up! What takest Life to be?
YA HU!
Are centuries not made of night and day?
YA HU!
Call now on God while he will list to thee!
YA HU!
The Caravan moves on; it will not stay!
YA Hu!
Remember Him whom Heaven and Earth adore!
YA HU!
Fast, and deny thyself; give alms and pray:
YA HU!
* This refrain is the cry of the Howling Dervishes.
+ The world, which we enter by the gate of Non-Existence, and depart from
by that of Death.
## p. 16967 (#667) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16967
Thy bark drifts hourly towards the Phantom-shore,
YA HU!
The sails are up, the vessel will not stay!
YA HU!
As yet the Accusing Scroll is incomplete;
YA HU!
But Scales and Bridge * maintain their dread array;
YA HU!
Now art thou here, now at the Judgment-Seat!
YA HU!
For death and justice brook not long delay!
YA HU!
Oh, trust Hudayi! he alone from birth
YA HU!
Is guided by the Guardian Four alway; t
YA HU!
He is alone the friend of God on earth,
YA HU!
Who visits earth, but doth not sigh to stay,
YA HU!
HUDAYI II. , OF ANATOLIA.
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
TO SULTAN MURAD II.
(Turkish)
E
ARTH sees in thee
Her Destiny: 1
Thou standest as the Pole - and she
Resembles
The Needle, for she turns to thee,
And trembles.
.
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
* « The Mahometans hold that the Balance wherein all things shall be
weighed on the Judgment Day is of so vast a size that its two scales will
contain both heaven and earth, and that one scale will hang over Paradise,
and the other over hell.
The Bridge, called in Arabic al Sirât, is,
they say, laid over the midst of hell, and is finer than a hair and sharper than
the edge of a sword, and those who cannot pass this bridge fall into hell. ”
-Sale's PRELIM. Disc.
+ The four Khalifs next in succession to Mohammed; viz. , Omar, Ali,
Osman, and Abubekhr.
| Murad signifies destiny.
## p. 16968 (#668) ##########################################
16968
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE DOWRY
(Nubian - Fifteenth Century)
A
CHANGE came over my husband's mind :
He loved me once, and was true and kind;
His heart went astray, he wished me away,
But he had no money my dower to pay.
Sing Durwadeega, Durwadee, *
Oh dear to me is Durwadee.
For blessed be Allah! he's old and poor,
And my cocks and hens were his only store;
So he kept me still, for well he knew
If I went, that the cocks and hens went too.
Sing Durwadeega, Durwadee,
Oh dear to me is Durwadee.
But I saw him pining day by day,
As he wished his poor wife far away;
So I went my rival home to call,
And gave her the hen-house, and him, and all.
Sing Durwadeega, Durwadee,
Oh dear to me is Durwadee.
Then he tore his turban off his brow,
And swore I never should leave him now,
Till the death-men combed his burial locks:
Then blessed for ever be hens and cocks.
Sing Durwadeega, Durwadee,
Oh dear to me is Durwadee.
FRONTI NULLA FIDES
(Turkish)
B
EWARE of blindly trusting
To outward art
And specious sheen,
For Vice is oft incrusting
The hollow heart
Within unseen.
* This refrain is Nubian for My henhouse, oh, my henhouse ); this hen-
house being the property of the wife, and a part of the dowry which the
husband is obliged to return to her, in case of a divorce.
## p. 16969 (#669) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16969
See that black pool below thee!
There Heaven sleeps
In golden fire;
Yet, whatsoe'er they show thee,
The mirror's deeps
Are slime and mire.
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
TO A TURKISH AUTHOR
T.
(Turkish)
THAT none may dub thee tactless dund'rhead,
Confine thy pen to light chit-chat,
And rattle on as might a letter!
For ninety-nine of every hundred
Hate Learning, and, what's more than that,
The hundredth man likes berresh * better!
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
Foozooli.
MEMORY
(Turkish)
He characters the slight reed traces
Remain indelible through ages;
Strange, then, that Time so soon effaces
What Feeling writes on Memory's pages!
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
Foozooli.
THE
TO AMÍNE, ON SEEING HER ABOUT TO VEIL HER MIRROR
VE
(Turkish)
EIL not thy mirror, sweet Amine,
Till night shall also veil each star:
Thou seest a two-fold marvel there,-
The only face as fair as thine,
The only eyes that near or far
Can gaze on thine without despair!
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
Foozooli.
* A preparation of opium.
## p. 16970 (#670) ##########################################
16970
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
LAMENT
(Turkish - Eleventh Century)
LIKE
IKE a cypress-tree,
Mateless in a death-black valley,
Where no lily springeth,
Where no bulbul singeth,
Whence gazelle is never seen to sally,
Such am I: Woe is me!
Poor, sad, all unknown,
Lone, lone, lone!
Like a wandering bee,
Alien from his hive and fellows,
Humming moanful ditties;-
Far from men and cities
Roaming glades which autumn rarely mellows,
Such am I: Woe is me!
Poor, sad, all unknown,
Lone, lone, lone!
Like a bark at sea,
All whose crew by night have perished,
Drifting on the ocean
Still with shoreward motion,
Though none live by whom Hope's throb is cherished,
Such am I: Woe is me!
Poor, sad, all unknown,
Lone, lone, lone!
So I pine and dree
Till the night that knows no morrow
Sees me wrapped in clay-vest:
Thou, chill world, that gavest
Me the bitter boon alone of Sorrow,
Give, then, a grave to me,
Dark, sad, all unknown,
Lone, lone, lone!
)
From the Firak-Nameh' (The Farewell Book) of
AHI, THE SIGHER.
## p. 16971 (#671) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16971
PASSAGE
(Arabian - Twelfth Century)
I
SEE not the strand,
For you all understand
That I pass for a mariner;
None can be barrener
Either of houses or land:
But I sail up and down a Red Sea;
For the wine that I lift to a lip
Rather given to curl in the way called derisive,
Whenever a brute is disposed to dispute
My pretensions to sip
Everlastingly, is, I've
A notion,
An ocean
To me and to all. jolly bibbers like me;
And the glass is my ship.
From the Kafwut-Nameh' (Book of Rubies).
Translation in Dublin University Magazine. Transcribed by
GHALIB.
TO MIRIAM, ON HER HAIR
(Arabian — Fifteenth Century)
E
THIOPIANS are thy locks:
In each hair
Lurks a snare
Worse than Afric's gulfs and rocks.
They who swear
By that hair
Swear the Koran's oath aright:
By the black Abyss of Night!
SELMAN.
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
## p. 16972 (#672) ##########################################
16972
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
EPIGRAM
To YUSUF BEN ALI BEN YACOOB
I
(Arabian — Fifteenth Century)
WROTE, Y
is a wretched proser,
Though tolerable verse-composer:
But 'twas not thee I satirized;
And I confess I feel surprised
To see thee thus take fire like nitre;
For thou art wrong, and thou shouldst know it;
Thou art indeed a poor prose-writer,
But not a tolerable poet.
ScheichI II.
Surnamed DJAGHIDSHURDSHI.
