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Annie I dreamed a strange dream last night,
At my bedside, I dreamed, you stood clad in white;
Your dark curly hair 'round your snow-white brow, -
(Are those locks as raven and curly now?)...

Near the banks of that lone river,
Where the water-lilies grow,
Breathed the fairest flower that ever
Bloomed and faded years ago.

Now we met and loved and parted,
None on earth can ever know--...

Years of the modern! years of the unperform'd!
Your horizon rises, I see it parting away for more august dramas;
I see not America only, I see not only Liberty's nation, but other nations preparing;...

Wild years that are to be
The sad completion of my weary life,
In ghostly mantles of despairing strife
Your phanton dimness darkly shadows me!
Gaunt demons dancing from your horrid halls...

Year that trembled and reel'd beneath me!
Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed froze me;
A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me;...

I have a horse, a ryghte good horse,
Ne doe Y envye those
Who scoure ye playne yn headye course
Tyll soddayne on theyre nose
They lyghte wyth unexpected force
Yt ys, a horse of clothes.
...

They got me into the Sunday-school
In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop
Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off
If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius....

1

A ship, a ship a-sailing,
A-sailing on the sea,
And it was deeply laden
With pretty things for me;
There were raisins in the cabin,
And almonds in the hold;...

Ye flags of Piccadilly,
Where I posted up and down,
And wished myself so often
Well away from you and town.

Are the people walking quietly
And steady on their feet,
Cabs and omnibuses plying...

1.

It was the frog lived in the well,
Heigh-ho! says Rowley;
And the merry mouse under the mill,
With a Rowley, Powley, Gammon, and Spinach,
Heigh-ho! says Anthony Rowley.

2.
...

1.
A jolly fat frog lived in the river swim, O!
A comely black crow lived on the river brim, O!
"Come on shore, come on shore,"
Said the crow to the frog, and then, O!...

Tune - "Ye Jacobites by name."


I.

Ye Jacobites by name, give and ear, give an ear;
Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear;
Ye Jacobites by name,
Your fautes I will proclaim,...

There was a jolly miller once
Lived on the river Dee;
He worked and sang from morn till night,
No lark more blithe than he.
And this the burden of his song
For ever used to be,...

Coomb-Firtrees say that Life is a moan,
And Clyffe-hill Clump says "Yea!"
But Yell'ham says a thing of its own:
It's not "Gray, gray
Is Life alway!"
That Yell'ham says,...

Must I, who walk alone,
Come on it still,
This Puck of plants
The wise would do away with,
The sunshine slants
To play with,
Our wee, gold-dusty flower, the yellow clover,...

With that lime green hairnet
commonly used by butterfly dispatchers -
something your aunt might have commandeered
to put her hair up donkey's years ago,
I unjarred the bottle of air &...

The first faint dawn was flushing up the skies
When, dreamland still bewildering mine eyes,
I looked out to the oak that, winter-long,
a winter wild with war and woe and wrong...

Ye Mariners of England
That guard our native seas,
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze,
Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe!...

("Matel'ts, vous d'ploirez les voiles.")

[XVI., May 5, 1839.]


Ye mariners! ye mariners! each sail to the breeze unfurled,
In joy or sorrow still pursue your course around the world;...

Vy yu mak my heart to yump,
Yennie dear?
Ay ban yust a fulish chump,
Yennie dear.
Yu ban sveet lak summer rose,
Lak a qveen from head to toes.
Ay ant fit for you, ay s'pose,
Yennie dear.
...