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Come over, come over the deepening river,
Come over again the dark torrent of years,
Come over, come back where the green leaves quiver,
And the lilac still blooms and the grey sky clears.
...

Softened by Time's consummate plush,
How sleek the woe appears
That threatened childhood's citadel
And undermined the years!

Bisected now by bleaker griefs,
We envy the despair...

"I cannot but remember such things were,
And were most dear to me."

'Macbeth' [2]

["That were most precious to me."

'Macbeth', act iv, sc. 3.]


...

"Perhaps it is foolish to remark it, but there are times and places when I am a child at those things"
--MACKENZIE.

Each scene of youth to me's a pleasing toy,
Which memory, like a lover, doats upon;...

Up to the little grave, with blossoms kept,
They went together; and one hid her face,
And spoke aloud the boy's dear name, and wept.
The other woman stood apart a space....

In a great city hospital
There lay poor Mary Crosby small,
She had no friends her heart to cheer,
So time with her passed sad and drear.

She sought for ease but all in vain,...

The Text is from the Percy Folio, given literatim, with two rearrangements of the lines (in stt. 4 and 22) and a few obvious corrections, as suggested by Hales, and Furnivall, and Child. The Folio version was printed by Jamieso...

Child of a day, thou knowest not
The tears that overflow thy urn,
The gushing eyes that read thy lot,
Nor, if thou knewest, couldst return!

And why the wish! the pure and blest...

O gentle vision in the dawn:
My spirit over faint cool water glides.
Child of the day,
To thee;
And thou art drawn
By kindred impulse over silver tides
The dreamy way
To me.
...

Come to me, O ye children!
For I hear you at your play,
And the questions that perplexed me
Have vanished quite away.

Ye open the eastern windows,
That look towards the sun,...

I hear a merry noise indeed:
Is it the geese and ducks that take
Their first plunge in a quiet pond
That into scores of ripples break,
Or children make this merry sound?
...

Our fathers wrung their bread from stocks and stones
And fenced their gardens with the Redmen's bones;
Embarking from the Nether Land of Holland,
Pilgrims unhouseled by Geneva's night,...

The holy boy
Went from his mother out in the cool of the day
Over the sun-parched fields
And in among the olives shining green and shining grey.

There was no sound,...

We little children join to praise
The Holy Child of endless days.
The Lord of glory undefiled
Was once like us a little child.

Chorus.--
"Sweetly, sweetly, sweetly singing,...

Johnston he is an engineer,
He always looks if track is clear,
For he hath a keen eagle eye,
Danger afar he doth espy.

And he hath too a warm true heart,
Of others woes he shares a part;...

Still linger in our noon of time
And on our Saxon tongue
The echoes of the home-born hymns
The Aryan mothers sung.

And childhood had its litanies
In every age and clime;...

I.

The City Child.


Dainty little maiden, whither would you wander?
Whither from this pretty home, the home where mother dwells?
'Far and far away,' said the dainty little maiden,...

The King and the Queen were riding
Upon a Summer's day,
And a Blackbird flew above them,
To hear what they did say.

The King said he liked apples,
The Queen said she liked pears....

I have a garden of my own,
Shining with flowers of every hue;
I loved it dearly while alone,
But I shall love it more with you:
And there the golden bees shall come,
In summer-time at break of morn,...

I wish you were a pleasant wren,
And I your small accepted mate;
How we'd look down on toilsome men!
We'd rise and go to bed at eight
Or it may be not quite so late.
...