No More Learning

An elemental man was he:
Loved God, his wife, his children dear,
And fared through dangers of the sea
Without a sense of fear.
And, loving nature, he was wise
In all the moods of wave and cloud:
Before the pageant of the skies
Nightly his spirit bowed:
Yet reckoned shrewdly with the gale,
And felt the viking's fierce delight
To face the north wind's icy hail,
Unmoved to thought of flight.
But wheresoe'er his prow was turned,
His thoughts, like homing pigeons, came
Back where his casement candle burned
Through many a league its flame.
Exiled from all he loved, at last
The summer gale has brought him home,
Where on the hillsides thickly massed
The elders break in foam.
The lonely highways that he knew
No longer hold him; nor the gale,
Sweeping the desolated blue,
Roars in his slanting sail.
For he has grown a part of all
The winter silence of the hills;
For him the stately twilights fall,
The hemlock softly shrills
In mimicry of gales that woke
His vigilance off many a shore
Whereon the vibrant billows broke.
Now he awakes no more.
He wakes no more! Ah me! his grief
Was ever that the sea had power


## p. 16799 (#499) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16799
To hold from him the budding leaf,
The opening of the flower.
And so he hungered for the spring -
The hissing, furrow-turning plow,
The first thin notes the bluebirds sing,
The reddening of the bough.
Wave-deafened, many a night he stood
Upon his watery deck, and dreamed
Of thrushes singing in the wood,
And murmurous brooks that streamed
Through silver shallows, and of bees
Lulling the summer afternoon
With mellow trumpetings of ease,
Of drowsiness the boon;
And dreamed of growing old at home,
The wise Ulysses of his crew
Of children's children, who would roam
With him the lands he knew,
And, wide-eyed, face with him the gale,
And hear the slanting billows roar
Their diapason round his rail
All safe beside his door.
Now he has come into his own,
Sunshine and bird-song round the spot,
And scents from spicy woodlands blown,-
Yet haply knows it not.
But round the grave where he doth keep,
Unsolaced by regret or woe,
His narrowed heritage in sleep,
The little children go.
They shyly go without a sound,
And read in reverent awe his name,
Until for them the very ground
Doth blossom with his fame.
L. FRANK TOOKER.


## p. 16800 (#500) ##########################################

16800
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
SLEEP ON, MY LOVE
S"
LEEP on, my love, in thy cold bed,
Never to be disquieted.
My last “good-night! ) Thou wilt not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake:
Till age, or grief, or sickness, must
Marry my body to that dust
It so much loves; and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in the tomb.
Stay for me there: I will not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale.
And think not much of my delay:
I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed
Desire can make or sorrow breed.
Each minute is a short degree,
And every hour a step towards thee;
At night, when I betake to rest,
Next morn I rise nearer my west
Of life, almost by eight hours' sail,
Than when sleep breathed his drowsy gale.
BISHOP CHICHESTER.
SMITH OF MAUDLIN
M
Y CHUMS will burn their Indian weeds
The very night I pass away,
And cloud-propelling, puff and puff
As white the thin smoke melts away;
Then Jones of Wadham, eyes half-closed,
Rubbing the ten hairs on his chin,
This very pipe I use
Was poor old Smith's of Maudlin. "
Will say,
That night in High Street there will walk
The ruffling gownsmen three abreast,
The stiff-necked proctors, wary-eyed,
The dons, the coaches, and the rest:
Sly « Cherub Sims” will then propose
Billiards, or some sweet ivory sin;
Tom cries, «He played a pretty game –
Did honest Smith of Maudlin. ”
((
»


## p. 16801 (#501) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16801
The boats are out ! - the arrowy rush,
The mad bull's jerk, the tiger's strength;
The Balliol men have wopped the Queen's-
Hurrah! — but only by a length.
Dig on, ye muffs, ye cripples, dig!
Pull blind, till crimson sweats the skin!
The man who bobs and steers cries, “Oh,
For plucky Smith of Maudlin. ”
»
Wine parties met-a noisy night;
Red sparks are breaking through the cloud;
The man who won the silver cup
Is in the chair erect and proud.
Three are asleep - one to himself
Sings, «Yellow jacket's sure to win. ”
A silence: . « Men, the memory
Of poor old Smith of Maudlin ! »
:-
The boxing rooms: With solemn air
A freshman dons the swollen glove;
With slicing strokes the lapping sticks
Work out a rubber — three and love;
With rasping jar the padded man
Whips Thompson's foil so square and thin,
And cries, “Why zur, you've not the wrist
Of Muster Smith of Maudlin. ”
(
»
But all this time beneath the sheet
I shall lie still, and free from pain,
Hearing the bed-makers sluff in
To gossip round the blinded pane;
Try on my rings, sniff up my scent,
Feel in my pockets for my tin:
While one hag says,
« We all must die,
Just like this Smith of Maudlin. ”
Ah! then a dreadful hush will come,
And all I hear will be the fly
Buzzing impatient round the wall,
And on the sheet where I must lie;
Next day a jostling of feet -
The men who bring the coffin in:
« This is the door — the third pair back-
Here's Mr. Smith of Maudlin. ”
GEORGE WALTER THORNBURY.
XXVIII-1051


## p. 16802 (#502) ##########################################

16802
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
A GREETING
O
DEAR and friendly Death!
End of my road, however long it be,
Waiting with hospitable hand stretched out,
And full of gifts for me!
Why do we call thee foe,
Clouding with darksome mists thy face divine ?
Life, she was sweet, but poor her largess seems
When matched with thine.
Thy amaranthine blooms
Are not less lovely than her rose of joy;
And the rare, subtle perfumes which they breathe
Never the senses cloy.
Thou holdest in thy store
Full satisfaction of all doubt, reply
To question, and the golden clue to dreams
Which idly passed us by;
Darkness to tired eyes
Perplexed with vision, blinded with long day,
Quiet to busy hands glad to fold up
And lay their work away;
A balm for anguish past,
Rest to the long unrest which smiles did hide,
The recognitions thirsted for in vain
And still by life denied;
A nearness all unknown
While in these stifling, prisoning bodies pent,
Unto thy soul and mine, Beloved, made one
At last, in full content.
Thou bringest me mine own:
The garnered flowers which felt thy sickle keen,
And the full vision of that face divine
Which I have loved unseen.
O dear and friendly Death!
End of my road, however long it be,
Nearing me day by day,– I still can smile
Whene'er I think of thee.
SARAH CHAUNCEY WOOLSEY (“Susan Coolidge").


## p. 16803 (#503) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16803
LAUGHTER AND DEATH
THER
WHERE is no laughter in the natural world
Of beast or fish or bird, though no sad doubt
Of their futurity to them unfurled
Has dared to check the mirth-compelling shout.
The lion roars his solemn thunder out
To the sleeping woods. The eagle screams her cry.
Even the lark must strain a serious throat
To hurl his blest defiance at the sky.
Fear, anger, jealousy, have found a voice.
Love's pain or rapture the brute bosoms swell.
Nature has symbols for her nobler joys,
Her nobler sorrows. Who had dared foretell
That only man by some sad mockery
Should learn to laugh who learns that he must die ?
WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.
THE FOUNTAIN OF TEARS
I
F you go over desert and mountain,
Far into the country of sorrow,
To-day and to-night and to-morrow,
And maybe for months and for years,
You shall come, with a heart that is bursting
For trouble and toiling and thirsting –
You shall certainly come to the fountain
At length — to the Fountain of Tears.
Very peaceful the place is, and solely
For piteous lainenting and sighing,
And those who come living or dying
Alike from their hopes and their fears;
Full of cypress-like shadows the place is,
And statues that cover their faces :
But out of the gloom springs the holy
And beautiful Fountain of Tears.
And it flows and it flows with a motion
So gentle and lovely and listless,
And murmurs a tune so resistless
To him who hath suffered and hears -
You shall surely, without a word spoken,
Kneel down there and know your heart broken,


## p. 16804 (#504) ##########################################

16804
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
And yield to the long-curbed emotion
That day by the Fountain of Tears.
For it grows, and it grows, as though leaping
Up higher the more one is thinking;
And ever its tunes go on sinking
More poignantly into the ears:
Yea, so blessed and good seems that fountain,
Reached after dry desert and mountain,
You shall fall down at length in your weeping
And bathe your sad face in the tears.
Then, alas! while you lie there a season,
And sob between living and dying,
And give up the land you were trying
To find 'mid your hopes and your fears, –
Oh, the world shall come up and pass o'er you,
Strong men shall not stay to care for you,
Nor wonder indeed for what reason
Your way should seem harder than theirs.
But perhaps, while you lie, never lifting
Your cheek from the wet leaves it presses,
Nor caring to raise your wet tresses
And look how the cold world appears, –
Oh, perhaps the mere silences round you —
All things in that place grief hath found you —
Yea, e'en to the clouds o'er you drifting,
May soothe you somewhat through your tears.
You may feel, when a falling leaf brushes
Your face, as though some one had kissed you,
Or think at least some one who missed you
Hath sent you a thought, — if that cheers;
Or a bird's little song, faint and broken,
May pass for a tender word spoken:
Enough, while around you there rushes
That life-drowning torrent of tears.
And the tears shall flow faster and faster.
Brim over, and baffle resistance,
And roll down bleared roads to each distance
Of past desolation and years,
Till they cover the place of each sorrow,
And leave you no past and no morrow:
For what man is able to master
And stem the great Fountain of Tears ?


## p. 16805 (#505) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16805
But the floods of the tears meet and gather;
The sound of them all grows like thunder:
Oh, into what bosom, I wonder,
Is poured the whole sorrow of years?
For Eternity only seems keeping
Account of the great human weeping:
May God, then, the Maker and Father -
May He find a place for the tears !
ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY.
SONG OF THE SILENT LAND
INT
NTO the Silent Land!
Ah! who shall lead us thither ?
Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather,
And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand.
Who leads us with a gentle hand
Thither, oh thither,
Into the Silent Land ?
Into the Silent Land!
To you, ye boundless regions
Of all perfection! Tender morning visions
Of beauteous souls! The Future's pledge and band!
Who in life's battle firm doth stand
Shall bear hope's tender blossoms
Into the Silent Land!
O Land! O Land!
For all the broken-hearted
The mildest herald by our fate allotted
Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand
To lead us with a gentle hand
Into the land of the great departed,
Into the Silent Land!
JOHANN GAUDENZ VON Salis.
Longfellow's Translation.


## p. 16806 (#506) ##########################################

16806
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
MARCH
-
,
ARCH- - march - march!
Making sound as they tread,
Ho ho! how they step,
Going down to the dead!
Every stride, every tramp,
Every footfall is nearer,
And dimmer each lamp,
As darkness grows dimmer:
But ho! how they march,
Making sounds as they tread;
Ho ho! how they step,
Going down to the dead!
March — march - march!
Making sounds as they tread,
Ho ho! how they laugh,
Going down to the dead!
How they whirl — how they trip,
How they smile, how they dally,
How blithesome they skip,
Going down to the valley!
Ho ho! how they march,
Making sounds as they tiead;
Ho ho! how they skip,
Going down to the dead!
March - march - march !
Earth groans as they tread;
Each carries a skull,
Going down to the dead!
Every stride, every stamp,
Every footfall is bolder!
'Tis a skeleton's tramp,
With a skull on his shoulder!
But ho! how he steps,
With a high-tossing head,
That' clay-covered bone,
Going down to the dead!
ARTHUR CLEVELAND Coxe.


## p. 16807 (#507) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16807
EVERY YEAR
L**
IFE is a count of losses,
Every year:
For the weak are heavier crosses
Every year;
Lost Springs with sobs replying
Unto weary Autumn's sighing,
While those we love are dying,
Every year.
The days have less of gladness
Every year;
The nights more weight of sadness
Every year:
Fair Springs no longer charm us,
The winds and weather harm us,
The threats of death alarm us,
Every year.
There come new cares and sorrows
Every year;
Dark days and darker morrows,
Every year;
The ghosts of dead loves haunt us,
The ghosts of changed friends taunt us,
And disappointments daunt us,
Every year.
To the past go more dead faces
Every year,
As the loved leave vacant places,
Every year;
Everywhere the sad eyes meet us,
In the evening's dusk they greet us,
And to come to them entreat us,
Every year.
“You are growing old,” they tell us,
“Every year;
You are more alone,” they tell us,
«Every year;
You can win no new affection,
You have only recollection,
Deeper sorrow and dejection,
Every year. "


## p. 16808 (#508) ##########################################

16808
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Too true! Life's shores are shifting
Every year;
And we are seaward drifting
Every year;
Old places, changing, fret us,
The living more forget us,
There are fewer to regret us,
Every year.
But the truer life draws nigher
Every year;
And its morning-star climbs higher,
Every year;
Earth's hold on us grows slighter,
And the heavy burthen lighter,
And the Dawn Immortal brighter,
Every year.
ALBERT PIKE.
TO O. S. C.
SPIRI
PIRIT of fire and dew,"
Whither hast fled ?
Thy soul they never knew
Who call thee dead.
Deep thoughts of why and how
Shadowed thine eyes:
Thou hast the answers now
Straight from the skies.
Thrilled with a double power,
Nature and Art-
Dowered with a double dower,
Reason and heart-
Not souls like thine, in vain
God fashioneth;
Leadeth them forth again,
Gently, by death.
ANNIE Eliot TRUMBULL.


## p. 16809 (#509) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16809
THE WIND OF DEATH
T"
HE wind of death, that softly blows
The last warm petal from the rose,
The last dry leaf from off the tree,
To-night has come to breathe on me.
There was a time I learned to hate,
As weaker mortals learn to love;
The passion held me fixed as fate,
Burned in my veins early and late -
But now a wind falls from above-
The wind of death, that silently
Enshroudeth friend and enemy.
There was a time my soul was thrilled
By keen ambition's whip and spur:
My master forced me where he willed,
And with his power my life was filled :
But now the old-time pulses stir
How faintly in the wind of death,
That bloweth lightly as a breath!
And once, but once, at Love's dear feet
I yielded strength and life and heart;
His look turned bitter into sweet,
His smile made all the world complete -
The wind blows loves like leaves apart-
The wind of death, that tenderly
Is blowing 'twixt my love and me.
O wind of death, that darkly blows
Each separate ship of human woes
Far out on a mysterious sea,
I turn, I turn my face to thee.
ETHELWYN WETHERALD.
A FAREWELL TO THE VANITIES OF THE WORLD
AREWELL, ye golden follies, pleasing troubles !
Farewell, ye honored rags, ye glorious bubbles!
Fame's but a hollow echo; gold, pure clay;
Honor's the darling of but one short day;
F !


## p. 16810 (#510) ##########################################

16810
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Beauty, the eyes' idol, but a damasked skin;
State but a golden prison to live in
And torture free-born minds; embroidered trains
Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins;
And blood allied to greatness is alone
Inherited, not purchased, nor our own;
Fame, honor, beauty, state, train, blood, and birth
Are but the fading blossoms of the earth.
I would be great, but that the sun doth still
Level his rays against the rising hill;
I would be high, but see the proudest oak
Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke;
I would be rich, but see men, too unkind,
Dig in the bowels of the richest mine;
I would be wise, but that I often see
The fox suspected whilst the ass goes free;
I would be fair, but see the fair and proud
Like the bright sun oft setting in a cloud;
I would be poor, but know the humble grass
Still trampled on by each unworthy ass:
Rich, hated; wise, suspected; scorned if poor;
Great, feared; fair, tempted; high, still envied more:
I have wished all, but now I wish for neither,
Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair; poor I'll be rather.
Would the world now adopt me for her heir;
Would beauty's queen entitle me “the fair";
Fame speak me fortune's minion; could I vie
Angels* with India; with a speaking eye
Command bare heads, bowed knees, strike justice dumb
As well as blind and lame; or give a tongue
To stones and epitaphs; be called great master
In the loose rhymes of every poetaster;
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives,
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign
Than ever Fortune would have made them mine,
And hold one minute of this holy leisure
Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.
Welcome, pure thoughts! welcome, ye silent groves!
These guests, these courts, my soul more dearly loves;
Now the winged people of the sky shall sing
My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring;
* Gold coins.


## p. 16811 (#511) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16811
A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet Virtue's face.
Here dwell no hateful looks; no palace cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears:
Then here I'll sit and sigh my hot love's folly,
And learn to affect an holy melancholy;
And if contentment be a stranger then,
I'll ne'er look for it but in heaven again.
Attributed to Sir Henry Wotton and to Raleigh.
FAREWELL, EARTH'S BLISS
A
DIEU, farewell, earth's bliss:
This world uncertain is;
Fond are life's lustful joys,
Death proves them all but toys.
None from its darts can fly:
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Rich men, trust not in wealth;
Gold cannot buy you health,
Physic himself must fade:
All things to end are made.
The plague full swift goes by.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Beauty is but a flower,
Which wrinkles will devour;
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen's eye.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Haste therefore each degree
To welcome destiny;
Heaven is our heritage,
Earth but a player's stage:
Mount we unto the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
THOMAS NASH.


## p. 16812 (#512) ##########################################

16812
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
EPHEMERON
G*
RAY, on the daisied grass,
Shadows of moving leaves;
Happy the brown bees huin,
Summer has come — has comc;"
Lightly the low winds pass,
Shaking the peony-sheaves.
Tulips the sun looks through
Shining and stately stand;
Redder than rubies glow
All their great globes a-row,
Bright on the summer blue,
Lanthorns of fairy-land.
Ever and aye my own
Still shall this moment be;
I shall remember all, -
Shadows, and tulips tall,
Scent from the bean-fields blown,
Song of the humble-bee.
*
*
Lost is that fragrant hour,
Dewy and golden-lit,-
Dead
for the memory
Pitiful comes to me
Wan as a withered flower,-
Only the ghost of it.
GRAHAM R. TOMSON.
(I HAVE LOVED FLOWERS THAT FADE »
I
HAVE loved flowers that fade,
Within whose magic tents
Rich hues have marriage made
With sweet unmemoried scents:
A honeymoon delight, -
A joy of love at sight,
That ages in an hour:
My song, be like a flower!
I have loved airs, that die
Before their charm is writ


## p. 16813 (#513) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16813
Along a liquid sky
Trembling to welcome it;
Notes, that with pulse of fire
Proclaim the spirit's desire,
Then die, and are nowhere:
My song, be like an air!
Die, song, die like a breath,
And wither as a bloom:
Fear not a flowery death,
Dread not an airy tomb!
Author Unknown.
THE HASTE OF LOVE
AM
H, SWEETHEART, let us hurry!
We still have time.
Delaying thus, we bury
Our mutual prime.
Beauty's bright gift shall perish
As leaves grow sere;
All that we have and cherish
Shall disappear.
The cheek of roses fadeth,
Gray grows the head;
And fire the eyes evadeth,
And passion's dead.
The mouth, love's honeyed winner,
Is formless, cold;
The hand, like snow, gets thinner,
And thou art old!
So let us taste the pleasure
That youth endears,
Ere we are called to measure
The Aying years.
Give, as thou lov'st and livest,
Thy love to me,
Even though, in what thou givest,
My loss should be !
MARTIN OPITZ.
Translation of Bayard Taylor.


## p. 16814 (#514) ##########################################

16814
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
ATALANTA
WHEN
HEN spring grows old, and sleepy winds
Set from the south with odors sweet,
I see my love in green, cool groves,
Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet.
She throws a kiss and bids me run,
In whispers sweet as roses' breath;
I know I cannot win the race,
And at the end, I know, is death.
But joyfully I bare my limbs,
Anoint me with the tropic breeze,
And feel through every sinew run
The vigor of Hippomenes.
O race of love! we all have run
Thy happy course through groves of spring,
And cared not, when at last we lost,
For life or death or anything!
MAURICE THOMPSON.
IMMANENCE
M
Y THOUGHTS go out like spider-threads,
Cast forth upon the air;
Filmy and fine, and floating wide,
Caught by whatever may betide,
To seek thee everywhere.
In league with every breeze that blows,
All ways, all holds they dare;
North, east, or south, or west they fly,
And sure, though winds be low or high,
To find thee everywhere.
Love still is lord of space and fate:
All roads his runners fare;
All heights that bar, they laughing climb;
They find all days the fitting time,
And highways everywhere.


## p. 16815 (#515) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16815
IN A ROSE-GARDEN
A
HUNDRED years from now, dear heart,
We shall not care at all.
It will not matter then a whit,
The honey or the gall.
The summer days that we have known
Will all forgotten be and flown;
The garden will be overgrown
Where now the roses fall.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
We shall not mind the pain;
The throbbing crimson tide of life
Will not have left a stain.
The song we sing together, dear,
Will mean no more than means a tear
Amid a summer rain.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
The grief will all be o'er;
The sea of care will surge in vain
Upon a careless shore.
These glasses we turn down to-day
Here at the parting of the way –
We shall be wineless then as they,
And shall not mind it more.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
We'll neither know nor care
What came of all life's bitterness,
Or followed love's despair.
Then fill the glasses up again,
And kiss me through the rose-leaf rain;
We'll build one castle more in Spain,
And dream one more dream there.
JOHN BENNETT.
THE ROSARY
TE
HE hours I spent with thee, dear heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me:
I count them over, every one apart,
My rosary.


## p. 16816 (#516) ##########################################

16816
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer,
To still a heart in absence wrung;
I tell each bead unto the end, and there
A cross is hung.
O memories that bless- and burn!
O barren gain — and bitter loss!
I kiss each bead and strive at last to learn
To kiss the cross,
Sweetheart,
To kiss the cross.
ROBERT CAMERON Rogers.
A THRENODY
TH
HE rainy smell of a ferny dell,
Whose shadow no sun-ray flaws,
When Autumn sits in the wayside weeds
Telling her beads
Of haws.
The phantom mist, that is moonbeam-kissed,
On hills where the trees are thinned,
When Autumn leans at the oak-root's scarp,
Playing a harp
Of wind.
The crickets' chirr 'neath brier and burr,
By leaf-strewn pools and streams,
When Autumn stands 'mid the dropping nuts,
With the book, she shuts,
Of dreams.
(
The gray “alas” of the days that pass,
And the hope that says adieu,"
A parting sorrow, a shriveled flower,
And one ghost's hour
With you.
MADISON J. CAWEIN.


## p. 16817 (#517) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16817
COME BACK, DEAR DAYS
CO
HOME back, dear days, from out the past! —
I see your gentle ghosts arise ;
You look at me with mournful eyes,
And then the night grows vague and vast:
You have gone back to Paradise.
Why did you fleet away, dear days?
You were so welcome when you came!
The morning skies were all aflame;
The birds sang matins in your praise:
All else of life you put to shame.
Did I not honor you aright, -
I, who but lived to see you shine,
Who felt your very pain divine,
Thanked God and warmed me in your light,
Or quaffed your tears as they were wine ?
What wooed you to those stranger skies, —
What love more fond, what dreams more fair,
What music whispered in the air ?
What soft delight of smiles and sighs
Enchanted you from otherwhere ?
You left no pledges when you went:
The years since then are bleak and cold;
No bursting buds the Junes unfold.
While you were here my all I spent;
Now I am poor and sad and old.
LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.
A REVERY OF BOYHOOD
(THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
T
HERE we children used to play,
Through the meadows and
away,
Looking 'mid the grassy maze
For the violets; those days
Long ago
Saw them grow:
Now one sees the cattle graze.
XXVIII-1052


## p. 16818 (#518) ##########################################

16818
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
I remember as we fared
Through the blossoms, we compared
Which the prettiest might be:
We were little things, you see.
On the ground
Wreaths we bound;
So it goes, our youth and we.
Over stick and stone we went
Till the sunny day was spent;
Hunting strawberries, each skirts
From the beeches to the firs,
Till - Hello,
Children! Go
Home, they cry — the foresters.
HEINRICH VON MORUNGEN.
Translation of Edward T. McLaughlin.
TWILIGHT
I
SAW her walking in the rain,
And sweetly drew she nigh;
And then she crossed the hills again
To bid the day good-by.
«Good-by! good-by!
The world is dim as sorrow;
But close beside the morning sky
I'll say a glad Good-morrow! »
O dweller in the darling wood,
When near to death I lie,
Come from your leafy solitude,
And bid my soul good-by.
Good-by! good-by!
The world is dim as sorrow;
But close beside the morning sky
O say a glad Good-morrow!
ETHELWYN WETHERALD.


## p. 16819 (#519) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16819
THE HIGHWAY
TE
He highway lies all bare and brown,
A naked line across the down
Worn by a hundred hurrying feet.
The tide of life along it flows,
And busy commerce comes and goes.
Where once the grass grew green and sweet
The world's fierce pulses beat.
Well for the highway that it lies
The passageway of great emprise!
Yet from its dust what voices cry,-
Voices of soft green growing things
Trampled and torn from earth which clings
Too closely, unperceiving why
Its darling bairns must die.
*
***
My heart's a highway, trodden down
By many a traveler of renown,-
Grave Thought and burden-bearing Deeds.
And strong Achievement's envoy fares,
With laughing Joys and crowding Cares,
Along the road that worldward leads —
Once rank with foolish weeds.
Glad is my heart to hear them pass,
Yet sometimes breathes a low "Alas!
The tender springing things that grew-
The nursling hopes their feet destroyed,
Sweet ignorant dreams that youth enjoyed
That blossomed there the long year through-
Would I could have them too!
LOUISE BETTS EDWARDS.


## p. 16820 (#520) ##########################################

16820
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
OLD
B
Y THE wayside, on a mossy stone,
Sat a hoary pilgrim sadly musing:
Oft I marked him sitting there alone,
All the landscape like a page perusing;
Poor, unknown,
By the wayside, on a mossy stone.
Buckled knee and shoe, and broad-rimmed hat,
Coat as ancient as the form 'twas folding,
Silver buttons, queue, and crimped cravat,
Oaken staff his feeble hand upholding: -
There he sat!
Buckled knee and shoe, and broad-rimmed hat.
Seemed it pitiful he should sit there,
No one sympathizing, no one heeding,
None to love him for his thin gray hair,
And the furrows all so mutely pleading
Age and care:
Seemed it pitiful he should sit there.
It was summer, and we went to school,
Dapper country lads and little maidens,
Taught the motto of the “dunce's stool”.
Its grave import still my fancy ladens:
«Here's a fool! »
It was summer, and we went to school.
Still, in sooth, our tasks we seldom tried, -
Sportive pastime only worth our learning;
But we listened when the old man sighed,
And that lesson to our hearts went burning,
And we cried !
Still, in sooth, our tasks we seldom tried.
When a stranger seemed to mark our play,
(Some of us were joyous, some sad-hearted,)
I remember well — too well — that day!
Oftentimes the tears unbidden started,
Would not stay!
When the stranger seemed to mark our play.
When we cautiously adventured nigh,
We could see his lips with anguish quiver;


## p. 16821 (#521) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
1682 1
Yet no word he uttered, but his eye
Seemed in mournful converse with the river
Murmuring by,
When we cautiously adventured nigh.
One sweet spirit broke the silent spell:
Ah! to me her name was always heaven!
She besought him all his grief to tell –
(I was then thirteen, and she eleven)
Isabel!
One sweet spirit broke the silent spell.
Softly asked she with a voice divine:
“Why so lonely hast thou wandered hither?
Hast no home? — then come with me to mine;
There's our cottage, let me lead thee thither.
Why repine ? ”
Softly asked she with a voice divine.
»
"Angel,” said he sadly, I am old;
Earthly hope no longer hath a morrow:
Yet why I sit here thou shalt be told. ”
Then his eye betrayed a pearl of sorrow:
Down it rolled ; -
“Angel,” said he sadly, “I am old!
“I have tottered here to look once more
On the pleasant scene where I delighted
In the careless, happy days of yore,
Ere the garden of my heart was blighted
To the core !
I have tottered here to look once more!
"All the picture now to me how dear!
E'en this gray old rock where I am seated
Seems a jewel worth my journey here;
Ah, that such a scene should be completed
With a tear!
All the picture now to me how dear!
«Old stone school-house! - it is still the same!
There's the very step so oft I mounted;
There's the window creaking in its frame,
And the notches that I cut and counted
For the game:
Old stone school-house! it is still the same!


## p. 16822 (#522) ##########################################

16822
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
«In the cottage yonder I was born —
Long my happy home, that humble dwelling:
There the fields of clover, wheat, and corn,
There the spring with limpid nectar swelling :
Ah, forlorn!
In the cottage yonder I was born.
(C
“Those two gateway sycamores you see —
They were planted just so far asunder
That long well-pole from the path to free,
And the wagon to pass safely under -
Ninety-three!
Those two gateway sycamores you see.
« There's the orchard where we used to climb,
When my mates and I were boys together;
Thinking nothing of the flight of time,
Fearing naught but work and rainy weather:
Past its prime!
There's the orchard where we used to climb.
« There the rude three-cornered chestnut rails,
Round the pasture where the flocks were grazing,
Where so sly I used to watch for quails
In the crops of buckwheat we were raising;
Traps and trails. -
There the rude three-cornered chestnut rails.
«How in summer have I traced that stream,
There through mead and woodland sweetly gliding,
Luring simple trout with many a scheme,
From the nooks where I have found them hiding:
All a dream!
How in summer have I traced that stream.
« There's the mill that ground our yellow grain;
Pond, and river still serenely flowing;
Cot, there nestling in the shaded lane,
Where the lily of my heart was blowing –
Mary Jane!
There's the mill that ground our yellow grain.
« There's the gate on which I used to swing,
Brook, and bridge, and barn, and old red gable;
But alas! the morn shall no more bring
That dear group around my father's table:


## p. 16823 (#523) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16823
Taken wing!
There's the gate on which I used to swing.
“I am fleeing! — all I loved are fled;
Yon green meadow was our place for playing;
That old tree can tell of sweet things said,
When around it Jane and I were straying:
She is dead!
I am fleeing ! - all I loved have fled!
« Yon white spire,- a pencil on the sky,
Tracing silently life's changeful story,
So familiar to my dim old eye,
Points me to seven who are now in glory
There on high!
Yon white spire,- a pencil on the sky.
«Oft the aisle of that old church we trod,
Guided thither by an angel mother;
Now she sleeps beneath its sacred sod,
Sire and sisters, and my little brother:
Gone to God!
Oft the aisle of that old church we trod.
« There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways;
Bless the holy lesson! — but ah, never
Shall I hear again those songs of praise,
Those sweet voices silent now forever!
Peaceful days!
There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways.
“There my Mary blest me with her hand,
When our souls drank in the nuptial blessing,–
Ere she hastened to the spirit land,
Yonder turf her gentle bosom pressing:
Broken band!
There my Mary blest me with her hand.
“I have come to see that grave once more,
And the sacred place where we delighted,
Where we worshiped in the days of yore,
Ere the garden of my heart was blighted
To the core !
I have come to see that grave once more.
“Haply, ere the verdure there shall fade,
I, all withering with years, shall perish;


## p. 16824 (#524) ##########################################

16824
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
With my Mary may I there be laid,
Join forever — all the wish I cherish -
Her dear shade!
Haply, ere the verdure there shall fade.
"Angel,” said he sadly, "I am old!
Earthly hope no longer hath a morrow;
Now why I sit here thou hast been told. ” –
In his eye another pearl of sorrow
Down it rolled!
“Angel,” said he sadly, "I am old!
By the wayside, on a mossy stone,
Sat the hoary pilgrim, sadly musing:
Still I marked him sitting there alone,
All the landscape like a page perusing;
Poor, unknown,
By the wayside, on a mossy stone.
RALPH HOYT.
THE PRIME OF LIFE
Jº
Ust as I thought I was growing old,
Ready to sit in my easy-chair,
To watch the world with a heart grown cold,
And smile at a folly I would not share,
Rose came by with a smile for me,-
And I am thinking that forty year
Isn't the age that it seems to be,
When two pretty brown eyes are near.
Bless me, of life it is just the prime ! -
A fact that I hope she will understand ;-
And forty year is a perfect rhyme
To dark-brown eyes and a pretty hand.
These gray hairs are by chance, you see,–
Boys are sometimes gray, I am told.
Rose came by with a smile for me,
Just as I thought I was getting old.
WALTER LEARNED.


## p. 16825 (#525) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16825
THE OLD
T"
WHEY are waiting on the shore
For the bark to take them home:
They will toil and grieve no more;
The hour for release hath come.
All their long life lies behind,
Like a dimly blending dream;
There is nothing left to bind
To the realms that only seem.
They are waiting for the boat;
There is nothing left to do:
What was near them grows remote,
Happy silence falls like dew;
Now the shadowy bark is come,
And the weary may go home.
By still water they would rest,
In the shadow of the tree;
After battle, sleep is best,
After noise, tranquillity,
RODEN NOËL.
THE GREAT BREATH
I"
Ts edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
Withers once more the old blue flower of day;
There where the ether like a diamond glows,
Its petals fade away.
A shadowy tumult stirs the dusky air;
Sparkle the delicate dews, the distant snows;
The great deep thrills, for through it everywhere
The breath of Beauty blows.
I saw how all the trembling ages past,
Molded to her by deep and deeper breath,
Neared to the hour when Beauty breathes her last
And knows herself in death.
G. W. RUSSELL.


## p. 16826 (#526) ##########################################

16826
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE REFUSAL OF CHARON *
"W"
Hy look the distant mountains
So gloomy and so drear?
Are rain-clouds passing o'er them,
Or is the tempest near ? » —
«No shadow of the tempest
Is there, nor wind, nor rain,-
'Tis Charon that is passing by,
With all his gloomy train.
“The young men march before him
In all their strength and pride;
The tender little infants,
They totter by his side;
The old men walk behind him,
And earnestly they pray-
Both old and young imploring him
To grant some brief delay. ” —
“O Charon! halt, we pray thee,
By yonder little town,
Or near that sparkling fountain,
Where the waters wimple down!
The old will drink and be refreshed,
The young the disk will fing,
And the tender little children
Pluck flowers beside the spring. ”.
“I will not stay my journey,
Nor halt by any town,
Near any sparkling fountain,
Where the waters wimple down:
The mothers coming to the well
Would know the babes they bore;
The wives would clasp their husbands,
Nor could I part them more. ”
Romaic.
* Modern Greek poetry assigns to Charon, not only the duty of ferrying his
cargo across the Styx, but the function formerly assumed by Hermes, of con-
ducting the souls of the dead to the underworld.


## p. 16827 (#527) ##########################################

SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16827
THE WILD RIDE
I
HEAR in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses,
All night from their cells the importunate tramping and neighing.
Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle, [legion,
Straight, grim, and abreast, vault our weather-worn, galloping
With stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him.
The road is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses;
There are shapes by the way, there are things to entice us:
What odds? We are knights, and our souls are but bent on the
riding.
Thought's self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb,
And friendship a flower in the dust, and her pitiful beauty!
We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers.
I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses,
All night from their cells the importunate tramping and neighing.
We spur to a land of no name, outracing the storm-wind;
We leap to the infinite dark, like the sparks from the anvil.
Thou leadest, O God! All's well with thy Troopers that follow!
LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY.
THE FRONTIER
O
SOLDIER, treading through the long day's heat,
With tattered banner and with drooping crest, —
Now as the sun sinks down thy purpled West,
Thou who hast come so far with aching feet,
Thou who must march and never canst retreat,
Art thou not weary of the bootless quest ?
Look'st thou not forward to a time of rest?
Sweet will it be — beyond all telling sweet-
After long marches with red danger fraught,
The wakeful bivouac, the assault and flight-
After thy scars of glory; sore distraught -
To camp afar, beyond defeat and fight,
Wrapped in the blanket of a dreamless night,
Out past the pickets and the tents of thought!
LLOYD MIFFLIN.


## p. 16828 (#528) ##########################################

16828
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
FREEDOM OF THE MIND
H"
IGH walls and huge the body may confine,
And iron grates obstruct the prisoner's gaze,
And massive bolts may baffle his design,
And vigilant keepers watch his devious ways;
Yet scorns the immortal mind this base control!
No chains can bind it, and no cell inclose:
Swifter than light it flies from Pole to Pole,
And in a flash from earth to heaven goes!
It leaps from mount to mount — from vale to vale
It wanders, plucking honeyed fruits and flowers;
It visits home, to hear the fireside tale,
Or in sweet converse pass the joyous hours;
'Tis up before the sun, roaming afar,
And in its watches wearies every star!
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.
THE CLOISTER
T:
HOUGHT never knew material bound or place,
Nor footsteps may the roving fancy trace:
Peace cannot learn beneath a roof to house,
Nor cloister hold us safe within our vows.
The cloistered heart may brave the common air,
And the world's children breathe the holiest prayer:
Build for us, Lord, and in thy temple reign!
Watch with us, Lord, our watchman wakes in vain!
LYDIA MARIA Child.
MY MINDE TO ME A KINGDOM IS
M
Y MINDE to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy wherein I finde
As farre exceeds all earthly blisse
That God or nature hath assignde;
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my minde forbids to crave.
Content I live; this is my stay, —
I seek no more than may suffice.