Translation of
Francesca
Alexander.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v28 - Songs, Hymns, Lyrics
WISDOM IS BETTER THAN RUBIES
I
N ALL the world there are but jewels three:
Water, and rice, and wisdom's precious word.
The fool, when asked how many jewels he
May own, of precious stones doth count his hoard.
## p. 16992 (#692) ##########################################
16992
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE SENSES
MAN is like a water-skin :*
Wisdom, like water, is within.
Five wretched senses man do cumber:
Four legs and neck are five in number.
A
If even one its tightness lose,
All water from the bag will ooze:
If of one sense man lose control,
All wisdom oozeth from his soul.
USE AND WASTE
F"
IE on that huinan being's life, I cried,
That's bare of service to his fellows done!
Hurrah for cattle! for at least their hide
Will serve for leather when their life is run.
« I WERE BUT LITTLE HAPPY IF I COULD SAY HOW MUCH »
(
»
"S"
WEET love,” I asked her, from my journey far
Now home returning, “Is it well with thee? ”
No word she spake: her ly answer this,-
That her two eyes all brimming with her tears
Love's story told and nothing left unsaid.
THE LOST HEART
E-
H*
Remember me, O lady-love, pray I.
She — I'll have no memory, sir, for thee, say I.
He – Remembrance is a duty of the heart.
She — But mine is stolen: thou the robber art.
(“Where beauty moves and wit delights,
And sighs of kindness bind me,-
There, oh there, where'er I go,
I leave my heart behind me. ”)
* Sce Century Dictionary, under «bottle,” for illustration of water-skin.
## p. 16993 (#693) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16993
“FULL MANY A FLOWER IS BORN TO BLUSH UNSEEN »
O
JASMINE-BLOOM, thy cheek no fragrant zephyr
Did ever kiss; nor e'er did honey-drinker
Thy nectar sip. A rough bough hid thy petals.
Fled is thy beauty to the realm of change.
0 COTTON-TREE!
O
COTTON-TREE! far from the road thou standest.
Thou art so thorny! and no shade thou yieldest.
E'en apes do scorn thy fruit. No perfume hast thou,
So that the bees, the honey-drinkers, shun thee. *
O cotton-tree! thou art so void of goodness,
'Twere bootless we should visit thee. We pray thee,
Stand where thou art,
And let us sigh and pass.
SOLID SOMETHING
HO solid learning, solid wit,
Courage, and solid character, -
Or solid ducats hath at hand, -
E'en gods do wait on his command!
W
SEF
JUST MY LUCK
EE I a dog? there's ne'er a stone to throw!
Or stone ? there's ne'er a dog to hit, I trow!
Or if at once both stone and dog I view -
It is the king's dog! Damn! what can I do?
THE FIVE DOUBLE U'S
INSOMENESS, wardrobe, words of eloquence,
Wisdom, and wealth, bring men to consequence.
That's something which a man in vain pursues
Who is not blest with these five w's. +
W"
* The road through the Indian Hell is foul with the stench of the rotting
corpses sinners; it passes rivers of boiling water, jars of boiling oil, and
plains of white sand exceeding hot, and is beset with cotton-trees (Mabā-
bhārata, xviii. 2, 17 pp. ).
+ The Sanskrit word for each of these five things begins with w.
XXVIII—1063
## p. 16994 (#694) ##########################################
16994
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
DEATH BETTER THAN POVERTY
A
(
POOR man to a grave-yard went with speed,
And to a corpse he spake that rested there:*
“Ho, rise, friend, quick! one moment help me bear
My heavy load of poverty and need.
Tired am I now. Long do I yearn to see
The quiet ease that death hath brought to thee. "
The corpse bethought himself
« Full well I know
Death's yoke is easy,
Poverty's not so. ”
Never a word spake he.
THE METEMPSYCHOSIS
(1)
F:
OR one brief hour we tarry with our loves.
The wheel of birth and death, aye whirling, moves
Round the long paths from primal naught to Brahm's abode.
We joy to give those loves the name of “brother,"
Of “friend,” perhaps, of “father,” or of “mother. ”
Alas! they're chance acquaintance met upon the road.
THE METEMPSYCHOSIS
а
(11)
[It is still a familiar sight in a German village to see the women go to the
public fountain to fetch water, and stop for a while to gossip with their neigh-
bors. To such a stop is the span of human life likened. )
HORT time we bide together here below,
Like maids that to the village fountain go:
By fate unto one meeting-place we're led;
By Karma then forever sunderèd.
S"
* In the (Frogs) of Aristophanes (172-177), Dionysos asks a corpse to carry
some baggage to Hades; but tries to beat him down on the price from two
drachma (12 obols) to nine obols. The corpse makes answer, I'd sooner
come to life again. ” Mr. James Russell Lowell told my colleague, Professor
Goodwin, that he considered this «the best joke of antiquity. ”
## p. 16995 (#695) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16995
ΦΩ ΝΑ ΝΤΑ ΣΥΝΕΤOΙΣΙΝ *
[THE OCEAN Shows A TIDE, BUT A PUDDLE Does Nor]
The
he moon's bright rays to flood will swell
The boundless ocean's breast; †
And though on springs she casts her spell.
Unmoved their waters rest.
Some touch of greatness there must be
In common 'twixt the moon and sea.
And so it is with poets' work,
And men of common mind:
Their souls need first thy spirit's touch,
O poesy divine!
HIDE AND SEEK
HIDE myself behind a tree;
Wilhelm seeks his little dove -
Seeks in vain, then gayly cries,
«Where art thou hidden, darling ? ”
I
I give no answer: on he goes,
Searching every leafy bush
Seeks in vain, then gravely cries,
“Where art thou hidden, Esther ? »
Still no answer: now he fumes,
Will no longer seek for me-
“Nay, if thou wilt not show thyself,
I'll leave thee, foolish maiden!
Then he marches off in scorn:
Out I creep and follow him,
Mimicking his stately steps,
And smiling at his answer.
Now he stops and looks behind,
Sees me, clasps me to his breast
Foolish maiden now no more,
Nor Esther, but sweet darling!
Saxon.
* Vocal to those that understand them.
+ The ocean is called the “Boundless. )
## p. 16996 (#696) ##########################################
16996
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
SONG OF THE TONGA-ISLANDERS
COS
OME to Licoö! the sun is riding
Down hills of gold to his coral bowers;
Come where the wood-pigeon's moan is chiding
The song of the wind, while we gather flowers.
Let us plait the garland, and weave the chi,
While the wild waves dance on our iron strand;
To-morrow these waves may wash our graves,
And the moon look down on a ruined land.
Let us light the torches, and dip our hair
In the fragrant oil of the sandal-tree;
Strike the bonjoo, and the oola share,
Ere the death-gods hear our jubilee.
Who are they that in floating towers
Come with their skins of curdled snows?
They shall see our maidens dress our bowers,
While the hooni shines on their sunny brows.
Who shall mourn when, red with slaughter,
Finow sits on the funeral stone ?
Who shall weep for his dying daughter ?
Who shall answer the red chief's moan?
He shall cry unheard by the funeral stone,
He shall sink unseen by the split canoe,
Though the plantain-bird be his alone,
And the thundering gods of Fanfonnoo.
Let us not think 'tis but an hour
Ere the wreath shall drop from the warrior's waist;
Let us not think 'tis but an hour
We have on our perfumed mats to waste.
Shall we not banquet, though Tonga's king
To-morrow may hurl the battle-spear?
Let us whirl our torches and tread the ring,–
He only shall find our footprints here.
We will dive, — and the turtle's track shall guide
Our way to the cave where Hoonga dwells,
Where under the tide he hides his bride,
And lives by the light of its starry shells.
## p. 16997 (#697) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16997
Come to Licoö! in yellow skies
The sun shines bright, and the wild waves play:
To-morrow for us may never rise; -
Come to Licoö, to-day, to-day.
Author Unknown.
KULNASATZ, MY REINDEER
A LAPLAND SONG
K
ULNASATZ, my reindeer,
We have a long journey to go:
The moors are vast,
And we must haste.
Our strength, I fear,
Will fail, if we are slow;
And so
Our songs will do.
Kaigè, the watery moor,
Is pleasant unto me,
Though long it be,
Since it doth to my mistress lead,
Whom I adore.
The Kilwa moor
I ne'er again will tread.
Thoughts filled my mind,
Whilst I through Kaigè passed
Swift as the wind,
And my desire
Winged with impatient fire;-
My reindeer, let us haste!
So shall we quickly end our pleasing pain -
Behold my mistress there,
With decent motion walking o'er the plain.
Kulnasatz, my reindeer,
Look yonder where
She washes in the lake!
See, while she swims,
The water from her purer limbs
New clearness take!
Author and Translator Unknown.
## p. 16998 (#698) ##########################################
16998
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
BEWARE
I
KNOW a maiden fair to see,
Take care!
She can both false and friendly be,
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not, she is fooling thee!
She has two eyes, so soft and brown,
Take care!
She gives a side-glance and looks down,
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not, she is fooling thee!
And she has hair of a golden hue,
Take care!
And what she says it is not true,
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not, she is fooling thee!
She has a bosom as white as snow,
Take care!
She knows how much it is best to show,
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not, she is fooling thee!
She gives thee a garland woven fair,
Take care!
It is a fool's-cap for thee to wear,
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not, she is fooling thee!
LONGFELLOW (Folk-Song, translated).
THE ROSY MUSK-MALLOW
(ROMANY LOVE-SONG)
T"
He rosy musk-mallow blooms where the south wind blows,
O my gipsy rose!
In the deep dark lanes where thou and I must meet –
So sweet!
Before the harvest moon's gold glints over the down,
Or the brown-sailed trawler returns to the gray sea-town,
The rosy inusk-mallow sways, and the south wind's laughter
Follows our footsteps after!
## p. 16999 (#699) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16999
The rosy musk-mallow blooms by the moor-brook's flow,
So daintily 0!
Where thou and I in the silence of night must pass,
My lass!
Over the stream with its ripple of song, to-night,
We will fly, we will run together, my heart's delight!
The rosy musk-mallow sways, and the moor-brook's laughter
Follows our footsteps after!
The rosy musk-mallow blooms within sound of the sea;
It curtsies to thee,
O my gipsy-queen, it curtsies adown to thy feet-
So sweet!
When dead leaves drift through the dusk of the autumn day,
And the red elf-lanthorns hang from the spindle-spray,
The rosy musk-mallow sways, and the sea's wild laughter
Follows our footsteps after!
The rosy musk-mallow blooms where the dim wood sleeps
And the bindweed creeps;
Through tangled wood-paths unknown we must take our flight
To-night!
As the pale hedge-lilies around the dark elder wind,
Clasp thy white arms about me, nor look behind.
The rosy musk-mallow is closed, and the soft leaves' laughter
Follows our footsteps after!
ALICE E. GILLINGTON.
«RESZKET A BOKOR, MERT »
TE
REMBLES the bush, because
On it the bird hath flown!
Trembles my heart because
Into my mind hath come-
Into my mind hath come
Thought of a maiden dear!
Over the whole wide world
She's the most precious gem!
Full is the Danube stream,
Soon it may overflow.
So in iny inmost heart
Swelleth my passion's tide!
Lovest thou me, my rose ?
Thee do I love, alone;
## p. 17000 (#700) ##########################################
17000
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
More than thy parents do
Thee do I fondly love.
When we together were,
Me thou didst love, I know:
Then 'twas warm summer-time,
Winter, cold winter's here now!
If now no more thou lov'st,
Yet may God bless thee, dear;
But if thou lov'st me still,
Bless thee a thousandfold !
PETŐFI SÁNDOR (MAGYAR).
Translation of Nathan Haskell Dole.
THE CAPTAIN IN LOVE
“Cº.
ONDUCT thee wisely, Nicholas, as well becomes a captain,
Nor with thy children be at strife, nor venture to insult
them;
For they an evil plot have laid, resolving they will slay thee. ” —
“Who is it with my children talks ? who is it tells them stories?
Well! when the blooming spring shall come, and when shall come
the summer,
To Xerolibada I go, and to our ancient quarters, –
Thither I go to wed my love, to take a fair-haired maiden:
With golden coins I'll deck my love, with strings of pearls adorn her. ”
The Pallicars they heard his words, and scornful was their anger;
Three shots they gave him all at once, and all the three were fatal.
“Down with the weakling fool! ” they cried; "shoot down the worth-
less wanton!
From us he took the golden coins to win the fair-haired maiden.
Our fair-haired maid the pistol is, the sabre is our mistress. ”
Modern Greek.
(
LOVE DETECTED
M
AIDEN, we kissed, but 'twas at night; and who thinkst thou be-
held us?
The night beheld, the moon beheld, the moon and star of
evening:
The star dropped earthward from the sky, and told the sea the story;
The sea at once the rudder told; the rudder told the sailor;
The sailor sang it at the door, where sat his sweetheart listening.
Modern Greek.
## p. 17001 (#701) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
17001
FOLK-SONGS
COUNTRY LOVES
1
SOWED a bank with love, but all in vain,
For never one unlucky blade would grow!
It may be that it failed for want of rain;
Perhaps the seed was bad,—I do not know.
But all the seed I sowed on yonder plain,
I thought was love, 'twas only common grain;
And on that hill the seed that I let fall
Was only common barley after all!
The clouds have gathered, and I hear the rain;
The storm has troubled every fountain clear.
Love's fountain ne'er shall flow so bright again!
But stay! the sun's beginning to appear!
Love's fountain trembles when the storm it sees;
But while it rains, the sun shines on the trees.
If Heaven would grant the only joy I seek,
To move thy house and set it close to mine,
From window then to window we could speak,
And in two hearts would full contentment shine;
And in two hearts, with joy too great to tell,
Would love sincere and full contentment dwell.
Translation of Francesca Alexander.
THE LEAVES OF MAIZE
0"
H, I would sing aloud, if I but knew
That while I'm singing, one I love could hear
But hills and vales and mountains part us two, -
The song, though sweet, can never reach her ear.
And we are parted by the fields of grain, -
She cannot hear me, I may sing in vain.
The vines, with wandering shade, between us are,-
She cannot hear me from her window far.
And we are parted by the poplars green,-
She cannot hear the whispering leaves between.
Translation of Francesca Alexander.
## p. 17002 (#702) ##########################################
17002
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
RETURNED WITH USURY
O
SWALLOW, flying close along the sea,
Turn back, turn back, and to my words attend:
From thy bright wing one feather give to me,
For I would write a letter to my friend.
And when I've written all, and made it clear,
I'll give thee back thy feather, swallow dear.
And when 'tis written, and the seal is set,
I never more thy kindness will forget;
And when 'tis written all in gold, then I
Will give thy feather back, and see thee fly.
Translation of Francesca Alexander.
o
DOVE, that Aying o'er the hill, dost stay thee
To make thy nest among the stones for cover,
Lend me a feather from thy wing, I pray thee,
That I may write a letter to my lover.
And when it's writ all fine, and doth content me,
I'll give thee back the pen that thou hast lent me;
And when it's written out and sealed together,
O dove, I'll give thee back the love-steeped feather.
Translation of Alma Strettell.
SANTA ZITA: THE MIRACLE AT THE WELL
A
PILGRIM poor to Zita came one day,
All faint and thirsty with the summer heat,
And for a little water did her pray.
'Twas close beside the well they chanced to meet --
She feared to give it, yet what could she say?
She answered humbly, and with words discreet:
“I wish, my brother, I could give thee wine,
But if the water please thee, that is thine. ”
This said, she drew some water from the e11,
And with a cross the pitcher did she sign.
« O Lord,” she said, while low her sweet voice fell,
“Let not this water hurt him, he is thine. ”
The pilgrim, as he stooped to drink, could tell
Her thought before she spoke, “I wish 'twere wine. ”
He tasted, then, astonished, raised his head:
"But truly, this is precious wine,” he said.
Translation of Francesca Alexander.
## p. 17003 (#703) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
17003
THE GOLDEN GIRDLE
I
AM young and little; - only just fifteen,
Yet in Love's book my name is written down.
They have taken off my maiden garments sheen,
And put me on to-day my bridal gown.
« Black gown and silver girdle,” so they say,
« Love one, and let a hundred go their way. ”
“Black gown and golden girdle,” say to me,
“Love only one, and let a hundred be. ”
Translation of Francesca Alexander.
INVOCATION
G®
O HENCE, my beauty, go in peace to sleep;
And may thy bed of violets be made;
Three rays of sunlight watch above thee keep,
Twelve stars beside thy pillow be arrayed;
And may the moon come rest upon thy face;
Remember me, thou child of noble race:
And may the moon come rest upon thy head;
Remember me, thou lily crimson-red:
The morning star be shining at thy feet;
Remember me when thou dost rise, my sweet.
Translation of Alma Strettell.
WITHOUT AND WITHIN
I
EVERY man's internal care
Were written on his brow,
How many would our pity share
Who raise our envy now?
The fatal secret, when revealed,
Of every aching breast,
Would prove that only while concealed
Their lot appeared the best.
METASTASIO.
## p. 17004 (#704) ##########################################
17004
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
SCENT O'PINES
Lº
OVE, shall I liken thee unto the rose
That is so sweet?
Nay, since for a single day she grows,
Then scattered lies upon the garden-rows
Beneath our feet.
But to the perfume shed when forests nod,
When noonday shines,
That lulls us as we tread the woodland sod,
Eternal as the peace of God -
The scent o' pines.
Hugh M'CULLOCH.
TO THE ROSE
Q
UEENLY rose, one mother holds us,
Thee and me, upon her breast;
All-sustaining nature folds us
In eternal arms at rest.
Little rose, our beauties perish;
Storms will strip both thee and me:
But the life seed that we cherish
Still will bud eternally.
HÖLDERLIN.
Translation of Charles H. Genung.
ALONE IN THE FIELDS
AND
MID the high green grass I rest me here,
And gaze into the depths of space unbounded:
The crickets' music comes from far and near,
By heaven's blue I'm wondrously surrounded;
The fair white clouds in silence slowly glide
Through deep blue skies, like fair and mute dream-faces:
I feel as if I long ago had died
And float in rapture through eternal spaces.
HERMANN ALLMERS.
Translation of Charles H. Genung.
## p. 17005 (#705) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
17005
«MENTRE RITORNA IL SOLE »
W"
HEN comes again the sun
After the shortened days and full of pain,
Thine eyes serene and bright I see again,
Thy words in memory run.
Of thee, sweet Vanishing,
Recalled but in the vision of love's dream,
The earth in flower to speak to me doth seem,
And every voice of Spring.
Like to some happy one,
The grieving of lost years grows less to me,
The while, o blessed Dream, I live in thee
When comes again the sun!
ENRICO PANZACCHI.
Translation of Frank Sewall.
<IF SPIRITS WALK »
“I have heard (but not believed) that spirits of the dead
May walk again. ” — WINTER'S TALE.
)) -
I
F SPIRITS walk, Love, when the night climbs slow
The slant footpath where we were wont to go,
Be sure that I shall take the selfsame way
To the hill-crest, and shoreward, down the gray
Sheer graveled slope where straggling vetches grow.
Look for me not when gusts of winter blow,
When at thy pane beat hands of sleet and snow;
I would not come thy dear eyes to affray,
If spirits walk.
But when in June the pines are whispering low,
And when their breath plays with thy bright hair so
As some one's fingers once were used to play,
That hour when birds leave song and children pray,–
Keep the old tryst, sweetheart, and thou shalt know
If spirits walk.
ELLEN BURROUGHS.
## p. 17006 (#706) ##########################################
17006
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE PARTING LOVERS
»
S"
He says,
« The cock crows — hark ! »
He says, “No! still 'tis dark. ”
>
She says, “ The dawn grows bright;)
He says, “Oh no, my light. ”
She says, “Stand up and say,
Gets not the heaven gray ? ”
He says, “The morning star
Climbs the horizon's bar. ”
(
She says, “Then quick depart:
Alas! you now must start;
“But give the cock a blow
Who did begin our woe! ”
Chinese
Translation of William R. Alger.
THE PALM AND THE PINE
B
ENEATH an Indian palm a girl
Of other blood reposes;
Her cheek is clear and pale as pearl
Amid that wild of roses.
Beside a northern pine a boy
Is leaning fancy-bound,
Nor listens where with noisy joy
Awaits the impatient hound.
Cool grows the sick and feverish calm,
Relaxed the frosty twine,-
The pine-tree dreameth of the palm,
The palm-tree of the pine.
As soon shall nature interlace
Those dimly-visioned boughs,
As these young lovers face to face
Renew their early vows.
HEINRICH HEINE.
Translation of Richard Monckton Milnes.
## p. 17007 (#707) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
17007
THE BROOKSIDE
I
WANDERED by the brookside,
I wandered by the mill, -
I could not hear the brook flow,
The noisy wheel was still;
There was no burr of grasshopper,
No chirp of any bird,
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.
I sat beneath the elm-tree,
I watched the long, long shade,
And as it grew still longer,
I did not feel afraid;
For I listened for a footfall,
I listened for a word -
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.
He came not, - no, he came not, -
The night came on alone;
The little stars sat one by one,
Each on his golden throne:
The evening air passed by my cheek,
The leaves above were stirred -
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.
Fast silent tears were flowing,
When something stood behind, -
A hand was on my shoulder,
I knew its touch was kind;
It drew me nearer - nearer
We did not speak one word,
For the beating of our own hearts
Was all the sound we heard.
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES (Lord Houghton).
## p. 17008 (#708) ##########################################
17008
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
HIS WAY
L
OVE came to the door of the palace,
And the door was opened wide;
There wasn't a thing to hinder,
And they needed him much inside:
But he rattled his quiver and said with a sigh, -
“Can I enter an open door ? Not I!
Not I! Not I! »
Love came to the castle window,
And he found a great broad stair;
There wasn't a thing to hinder,
And he might have mounted there:
But he fluttered his wings, and said with a sigh,-
«Can I plod up a staircase ? No, not I!
Not I! Not I! »
Love came to the shore of the ocean,
And saw far over the strand
An inaccessible fortress
On a seagirt island stand.
“Who cares for an ocean? ” he gayly cried,
And his rainbow wings were quickly plied:
«Not I! Not I! »
Love came to a lonely dungeon,
Where window and door were barred;
There was none who would give him entrance,
Though he knocked there long and hard.
Then, “Who cares for a bolt ? » said the saucy elf;
And straightway the warder was Love himself!
« Not I! Not I!
EVA L. OGDEN.
## p. 17009 (#709) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
17009
DOWN THE BAYOU
W*
E DRIFTED down the long lagoon,
My Love, my Summer Love, and I,
Far out of sight of all the town;
The old cathedral sinking down,
With spire and cross, from view, below
The borders of St. John's Bayou,
As toward the ancient Spanish Fort,
With steady prow and helm a-port,
We drifted down, my Love and I,
Beneath an azure April sky,
My Love and I, my Love and I,
Just at the hour of noon.
We drifted down, and drifted down,
My Love, my Summer Love, and I,
Beyond the Creole part of town,
Its red-tiled roofs, its stucco walls,
Its belfries with their sweet bell-calls;
The Bishop's Palace, which enshrines
Such memories of the Ursulines;
Past balconies where maidens dreamed
Behind the shelter of cool vines;
Past open doors where parrots screamed;
Past courts where mingled shade and glare
Fell through pomegranate boughs, to where
The turbaned negress, drowsy grown,
Sat nodding in her ample chair;
Beyond the joyance and the stress,
Beyond the greater and the less,
Beyond the tiresome noonday town,
The parish prison's cupolas,
The bridges with their creaking draws,
And many a convent's frown,-
We drifted on, my Love and I,
Beneath the semi-tropic sky,
While from the clock-towers in the town
Spake the meridian bells that said -
'Twas morn 'tis noon
Time flies - and soon
Night follows noon.
XXVIII-1064
## p. 17010 (#710) ##########################################
17010
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Prepare! Beware!
Take care! Take care!
For soon
So soon -
Night follows noon, -
Dark night the noon,-
Noon! noon! noon! noon!
With scarce the lifting of an oar,
We lightly swept from shore to shore, —
The hither and the thither shore,-
With scarce the lifting of an oar;
While far beyond, in distance wrapped,
The city's lines lay faintly mapped:
Its antique courts, its levee's throngs,
Its rattling floats, its boatmen's songs,
Its lowly and its lofty roofs,
Its tramp of men, its beat of hoofs,
Its scenes of peace, its brief alarms,
Its narrow streets, its old Place d'Armes,
Whose tragic soil of long ago
Now sees the modern roses blow,-
All these in one vast cloud were wound,
Of blurred and fainting sight and sound,
As on we swept, my Love and I,
Beneath the April sky together,
In all the bloomy April weather, -
My Love, my Summer Love, and I,
In all the blue and amber weather.
We passed the marsh where pewits sung,
My Love, my Summer Love, and I;
We passed the reeds and brakes among,
Beneath the smilax vines we swung;
We grasped at lilies whitely drooping
Mid the rank growth of grass and sedge,
Or bending toward the water's edge,
As for their own reflection tooping
Then talked we of the legend old
Wherein Narcissus's fate is told;
And turned from that to grander story
Of heroed past or modern glory,
Till the quaint town of New Orleans,
Its Spanish and its French demesnes,
Like some vague mirage of the mind,
In Memory's cloudlands lay defined;
## p. 17011 (#711) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
17011
And back and backward seemed to creep
Commerce, with all her tangled tongues,
Till Silence smote her lusty lungs,
And Distance lulled Discord to sleep.
Slowly along the old shell road
Some aged negro, 'neath his load
Of gathered moss and latanier,
Went shuffling on his homeward way;
While purple, cool, beneath the blue
Of that hot noontide, bravely smiled,
With bright and iridescent hue,
Whole acres of the blue-flag flower,
The breathy Iris, sweet and wild,
That floral savage unsubdued,
The gipsy April's gipsy child.
Now from some point of weedy shore
An Indian woman darts before
The light bow of our idle boat,
In which, like figures in a dream,
My Love — my Summer Love — and I
Adown the sluggish bayou float;
While she, in whose still face we see
Traits of a chieftain ancestry,
Paddles her pirogue down the stream
Swiftly, and with the flexile grace
Of some dusk Dian in the chase.
As nears our boat the tangled shore,
Where the wild mango weaves its boughs,
And early willows stoop their hair
To meet the sullen bayou's kiss;
Where the luxuriant "creeper” throws
Its eager clasp round rough and fair
To climb toward the coming June;
Where the sly serpent's sudden hiss
Startles sometimes the drowsy noon,-
There the rude hut, banana-thatched,
Stands with its ever open door;
Its yellow gourd hung up beside
The crippled crone who, half asleep,
In garments most grotesquely patched,
Grim watch and ward pretends to keep
Where there is naught to be denied.
## p. 17012 (#712) ##########################################
17012
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Still darkly winding on before,
For half a dozen miles or more,
Past leagues and leagues of lilied marsh,
The murky bayou swerved and slid,
Was lost, and found itself again,
And yet again was quickly hid
Among the grasses of the plain.
As gazed we o'er the sedgy swerves,
The wild and weedy water curves
Toward sheets of shining canvas spread
High o'er the lilies blue and red.
So low the shores on either hand,
The sloops seemed sailing on the land.
Now here, now there, among the sedge,
As drifted on my Love and I,
Were groups of idling negro girls,
Half hid behind the swaying hedge
Of wild rice nodding in the breeze,
Barefooted by the bayou's edge,
Just where the water swells and swirls,
They watched the passing of our boat.
Some stood like caryatides
With arms upraised to burdened heads;
Some, idly grouped among the weeds,
With arms about their naked knees,
Or full length on the grasses cast,
Grew into pictures as we passed.
Our aimless course they idly noted;
Then out across the lowlands floated
Rude snatches of plantation songs,
In that sweet cadence which belongs
To their full-lipped, full-lungèd race.
We heard the rustle of the grass
They parted wide to see us pass:
Our boat so neared their resting-place,
We heard their murmurs of surprise,
And glanced into their shining eyes;
Then caught the rich, mellifluous strain
That fell and rose, and fell again;
And listened, listened, till the last
Clear note was mingled with the past.
.
Aloft, on horizontal wing,
We saw the buzzard rock and swing;
## p. 17013 (#713) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
17013
That sturdy sailor of the air,
Whose agile pinions have a grace
That prouder plumes might proudly wear,
And claim it for a kinglier race.
From distant oak-groves, sweet and strong,
The voicy mocking-bird gave song, -
That plagiarist whose note is known
As every bird's, yet all his own.
As shuttles of the Persian looms
Catch all of Nature's subtlest blooms,
Alike her bounty and her dole,
To weave in one bewildering whole,
So has this subtile singer caught
All sweetest songs, and deftly wrought
Them into one entrancing score
From his rejoicing heart to pour.
The wind was blowing from the south
When we had reached the bayou's mouth,
My Love - my Summer Love — and I.
Laden it came with rare perfumes, —
With spice of bays, and orange blooms,
And mossy odors from the glooms
Of cypress swamps. Now and again,
Upon the fair Lake Pontchartrain,
White sails went nodding to the main;
And round about the painted hulls
Darted the sailing, swooping gulls,
Wailing and shrieking, as they flew
Unrestingly 'twixt blue and blue,
Like ghosts of drowned mariners
Rising from deep-sea sepulchres,
To warn, with weird and woeful lips,
Who go down to the sea in ships.
And now, whene'er an April sky
Bends o'er me like some vast blue bell;
When piping birds are in the reeds,
And earth is fed on last year's seeds;
When newly the live-oak's tent
With tender green and gray besprent;
When wailing gulls are on the lake,
And woods are fair for April's sake;
When grassy plains their secrets tell,
And lilies with white wonder look
## p. 17014 (#714) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
17014
At other lilies by the brook;
When thrills the wild rice in the wind,
And cries the heron shrill and harsh
Along the lush and lonely marsh;
When in the grove the mocker sings,
And earth seems full of new-made things,
And Nature to all youth is kind, -
Once more, as in a vision, seem
To rise before me lake and stream:
Once more a semi-tropic noon,
A boat upon a long lagoon;
Two figures there, as in a dream,
Come, strangely dear and strangely nigh,
To touch me, and to pass me by;
And as they pass, once more I seem
To see, beneath the April sky,
In all the blue and silver weather,
My Love — my Summer Love — and I
Drift down the long lagoon together!
MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND.
WATCHING
SLE
.
LEEP, love, sleep!
The dusty day is done.
Lo! from afar the freshening breezes sweep
Wide over groves of balm;
Down from the towering palm,
In at the open casement cooling run:
And round thy lowly bed,
Thy bed of pain,
Bathing thy patient head,
Like grateful showers of rain,
They come;
While the white curtains, waving to and fro,
Fan the sick air;
And pityingly the shadows come and go,
With gentle human care,
Compassionate and dumb.
The dusty day is done,
The night begun.
While prayerful watch I keep,
Sleep, love, sleep!
## p. 17015 (#715) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
17015
Is there no magic in the touch
Of fingers thou dost love so much ?
Fain would they scatter poppies o'er thee now,
Or, with a soft caress,
The tremulous lip its own nepenthe press
Upon the weary lid and aching brow.
While prayerful watch I keep,
Sleep, love, sleep!
On the pagoda spire
The bells are swinging,
Their little golden circles in a flutter
With tales the wooing winds have dared to utter,
Till all are ringing
As if a choir
Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing.
And with a loving sound
The music floats around,
And drops like balm into the drowsy ear,
Commingling with the hum
Of the Sepoy's distant drum,
And lazy beetle ever droning near.
Sounds these of deepest silence born,
Like night made visible by morn;
So silent, that I sometimes start
To hear the throbbing of my heart,
And watch, with shivering sense of pain,
To see thy pale lids lift again.
The lizard, with his mouse-like eyes,
Peeps from the mortise in surprise
At such strange quiet after day's harsh din;
Then ventures boldly out,
And looks about,
And with his hollow feet
Treads his small evening beat,
Darting upon his prey
In such a tricksy, winsome sort of way,
His delicate marauding seems no sin.
And still the curtains swing.
But noiselessly:
The bells a melancholy murmur ring,
As tears were in the sky;
## p. 17016 (#716) ##########################################
17016
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
More heavily the shadows fall,
Like the black foldings of a pall,
Where juts the rough beam from the wall;
The candles flare
With fresher gusts of air;
The beetle's drone
Turns to a dirge-like, solitary moan:
Night deepens, and I sit, in cheerless doubt, alone.
EMILY CHUBBUCK JUDSON (“Fanny Forrester”).
CLYTIA
the
T" Through the thickness of darkness light comes,
A gleam where no starlight can be,
A glance where no meteor roams:
When the feet of the morning are dark,
And the lamp of her eye is but dim,
And the flower of the field a dark spark,
The old glint of the wavelet a whim;
When a mist hides the earth from the sky,
When a sound of bells tolling is heard, —
A warning to ships that are nigh,
A silence of beast and of bird;
When the sad waves lament on the shore,
Or hurry and rush to the sand,
In wild waste, and tumult, and roar,
A purposeless, riotous band, -
Then over the night of my soul,
And over the tolling of death,
New fires of ecstasy roll
With the coming of Love, which is breath;
The green hollows whisper of birds,
The silences break into song,
And my spirit pours out into words
That to gladness and morning belong.
But alas for the glory of Dawn,
For his coming in fragrance and might,
Red roses and billowy lawn,
With the full patient moon in his sight,
If in vain do we wait for Love's feet,
And listen while the hours long delay,
## p. 17017 (#717) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
17017
And know that the lilies are sweet,
And the month is the month of May!
In vain would my spirit be glad,
If Love hath forgotten his way;
Or if slow he linger and sad,
In vain is the gladness of day.
ANNIE FIELDS.
TWO GUESTS
L
OVE was erewhile my guest, but did outstay
His welcome in my breast. Be it confessed
I wearied of his raptures, his unrest,
His smiles, his tears, his too capricious sway.
At last, with show of grief, Love went his way,
Leaving me free to bid a nobler guest.
Now is my dwelling garnished, swept, and dressed
With rarest bloom, for him who comes to-day.
Ah, what new worlds of joy we two shall trace!
What clear, calm realms of thought we shall explore!
Yet do I thrill beneath this first embrace
With the old bliss and pain I knew of yore.
Can this be he whose presence I forswore?
Can this be Love with a new voice and face?
SUSAN MARR SPALDING.
TAKE HEART!
M
ARSH rosemary in Union Square !
How did it ever happen there?
A seaside flower that children pull,
Sold by the bunch and basketful!
Marsh rosemary! that grows by acres
Within a stone's-throw of the breakers!
The life of our Atlantic coast,
I know not when I love it most:
When it has caught those very hues
The sunset was so loth to lose;
## p. 17018 (#718) ##########################################
17018
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
When lying like a purple haze
It neither undulates nor sways;
When by the scythe its ranks are thinned,
Or only furrowed by the wind.
O you whose wistful eyes are wet,
You who are rooted in regret,
Who rarely have within your reach
The ravishment of sky and beach,
Who think the joys of life forsake us
Never again to overtake us,-
Mark how these sprays of rosemary
Dipped in the crimson of the sky,
Steeped in the violet of the sea,
To Union Square have followed me!
LUCY C. BULL.
AN EAST-INDIAN SONG
O
WANDERER in the southern weather,
Our isle awaits us: on each lea
The pea-hens dance; in crimson feather
A parrot swaying on a tree
Rages at his own image in the enameled sea.
There dreamy Time lets fall his sickle
And Life the sandals of her fleetness,
And sleek young Joy is no more fickle,
And Love is kindly and deceitless,
And all is over save the murmur and the sweetness.
There we will moor our lonely ship,
And wander ever with woven hands,
Murmuring softly, lip to lip,
Along the grass, along the sands -
Murmuring how far away are all earth's feverish lands:
How we alone of mortals are
Hid in the earth's most hidden part,
While grows our love an Indian star,
A meteor of the burning heart,
One with the waves that softly round us laugh and dart;
## p. 17019 (#719) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
17019
One with the leaves; one with the dove
That moans and sighs a hundred days:
How when we die our shades will rove,
Dropping at eve in coral bays
A vapory footfall on the ocean's sleepy blaze.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS.
INDIAN MAID'S WAR SONG
ARK! the war song — the shouting – I hear the shrill sound;
They raise the red tomahawk out of the ground:
In the van of the battle my warrior must go;
Like the bloodthirsty panther he'll steal on his foe.
H
Yet with love his bold heart is still beating for me,
With a feeling like mine which death only can sever;
In kindness it flows as the sweet sugar-tree,
And akin to the aspen it trembles forever.
Nada-Wossi (Canada) Poem.
Translation in Dublin University Magazine.
BRANT TO THE INDIANS
Y"
E BRAVES of the Ancient League — the people's defenders!
Here, in the gates of the South, the white foe comes,
Daring his doom, yet marching with banners and splendors,
With empty roar of cannon and rattle of drums.
These are the hungry eaters of land — the greedy
Devourers of forest and lake and meadow and swamp;
Gorged with the soil they have robbed from the helpless and needy,
The tribes that trembled before their martial pomp.
These are the rich who covet the humble goods of the poor;
The wise, who with their cunning the simple ensnare;
The strong, who trample the weak as weeds on the moor;
The great, who grudge with the small the earth to share.
But you are the valiant braves of Ho-den-a-sau-nee;
The tribes of the East were weaklings, with hearts of the deer;
Unconquered in war you are, and ever shall be,
For your limbs are mighty — your hearts are void of fear.
## p. 17020 (#720) ##########################################
17020
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Continue to listen! These white men are liars who say
That red men are faithless to treaty, and heed not their pledge,
That they love but to ravage and burn, to torture and slay,
And to ruin the towns with torch, and the hatchet's edge!
The Spirit above gave his red children these lands,
The deer on the hills, the beaver and fowls in the ponds;
The bow and the hatchet and knife he placed in your hands,
And bound your tribes together in mighty bonds.
Who are these farm-house curs that foolishly rant
At you, the untamable cubs of the mountain-cat ?
Who is this lawyer that seeks on the war-path for Brant,
And struts with a new-bought sword and general's hat ?
Why do these choppers of wood, these ox-driving toilers,
Lust for the ancient homes of Ho-den-a-sau-nee?
Why from their barnyards came these rustic despoilers ?
Shall the sweet wilderness like their vile farms e'er be?
Can the warrior become a farmer's hired clown ?
Shall he hoe like the squaw, or toss up grass on a fork ?
Will the panther churn milk in the pen of the treadmill hound ?
Or the bear wear an apron and do a scullion's work?
Continue to listen! Ye are not fashioned for slaves!
And that these blue-eyed robbers at once shall know:
Want they your lands? — they shall not even have graves,
Until their bodies are buried by winter's snow!
GUY HUMPHREY MCMASTER.
THE RACE OF THE “BOOMERS »
TH?
He bleak o' the dawn, and the plain is asmoke with the breath of
the frost,
And the murmur of bearded men is an ominous sound in the
ear;
The white tents liken the ground to a flower-meadow embossed
By the bloom of the daisy sweet, for a sign that the June is here.
They are faring from countless camps, afoot or ahorse may be;
The blood of many a folk may flow in their bounding veins,
But, stung by the age-old lust for land and for liberty,
They have ridden or run or rolled in the mile-engulfing trains.
## p.
