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They told me Pan was dead, but I
Oft marvelled who it was that sang
Down the green valleys languidly
Where the grey elder-thickets hang.

Sometimes I thought it was a bird...

Tune - "Strathallan's Lament."


I.

Thickest night, surround my dwelling!
Howling tempests, o'er me rave!
Turbid torrents, wintry swelling,
Roaring by my lonely cave!

II....

"And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren and they hated him yet the more.", Genesis xxxvii. 5.



Oh ye who hold the written clue
To all save all unwritten things,...

Things are uncertain; and the more we get,
The more on icy pavements we are set.

This earth's a mystery profound,
Its movements, make, and changes all -
A mystery which none can sound,
Who dwell upon the whirling ball.

And deeper far than all the rest,...

A picture hung in a public hall,
And it was much admired by all,
Painted by a true artist's hand,
The subject it was truly grand.

Its fame o'er the whole world resounds,...

And what do you eat in the mess there compounded?
For roast beef, the gravy the soap-man should claim--
The soup some odd things might turn up if sounded,
And other "made-dishes" might turn up the same.
...

This dust was once the Man,
Gentle, plain, just and resolute under whose cautious hand,
Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,
Was saved the Union of These States.

This heart that flutters near my heart
My hope and all my riches is,
Unhappy when we draw apart
And happy between kiss and kiss:
My hope and all my riches, yes!
And all my happiness.
...

When the whole world resounds with rude alarms
Of warring arms,
When God's good earth, from border unto border
Shows man's disorder,
Let me not waste my dower of mortal might...

Tune - "This is no my ain house."



I.

O this is no my ain lassie,
Fair tho' the lassie be;
O weel ken I my ain lassie,
Kind love is in her e'e.
I see a form, I see a face,...

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age...

This man Jones was what you'd call
A feller 'at had no sand at all;
Kind o' consumpted, and undersize,
And sailor-complected, with big sad eyes,
And a kind-of-a sort-of-a hang-dog style,...

This merit hath the worst, --
It cannot be again.
When Fate hath taunted last
And thrown her furthest stone,

The maimed may pause and breathe,
And glance securely round....

This moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone,
It seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful;
It seems to me I can look over and behold them, in Germany, Italy,...

I hate this City, seated on the Plain,
The clang and clamour of the hot Bazar,
Knowing, amid the pauses of my pain,
This month the Almonds bloom in Kandahar.
...

(Being a Chant of the American Soap-Box and the Russian Revolution.)



O market square, O slattern place,
Is glory in your slack disgrace?
Plump quack doctors sell their pills,...

Aw like to see a lot o' lads
All frolicsome an free,
An hear ther noisy voices,
As they run an shaat wi' glee;
But if ther's onny sooart o' lad
Aw like better nor another,...

Th' last month o' th' year; an' ther's summat rayther sorrowful abaat th' last o' owt, exceptin' trouble; an' still to me ther's allus summat varry interestin' abaat owt at's "th' last." Aw've watched men when they've been buil...

Aw'll nivver get druffen noa mooar,
It's th' last time is this, an that's trew,--
For mi booans is all shakkin an sooar,
Throo th' craan o' mi hat, to mi shoe.

An mi skin, it's all cover'd wi' marks,...