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O river winding to the sea!
We call the old time back to thee;
From forest paths and water-ways
The century-woven veil we raise.

The voices of to-day are dumb,
Unheard its sounds that go and come;...

Have you got a brook in your little heart,
Where bashful flowers blow,
And blushing birds go down to drink,
And shadows tremble so?

And nobody knows, so still it flows,
That any brook is there;...

'Have you news of my boy Jack?'
Not this tide.
'When d'you think that he'll come back?'
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
'Has anyone else had word of him?'
Not this tide....

("Si vous n'avez rien ' me dire.")

[Bk. II. iv., May, 18 - .]


Speak, if you love me, gentle maiden!
Or haunt no more my lone retreat.
If not for me thy heart be laden,...

Have you seen but a bright lily grow
Before rude hands have touched it?
Have you marked but the fall of snow
Before the soil hath smutched it?
Have you felt the wool of beaver,
Or swan's down ever?...

Where is the landlord of old Hawk and Buckle,
And what of Master Straddler this hot summer weather?
He's along in the tap-room with broad cheeks a-chuckle,
And ten bold companions all drinking together.
...

In seventeen hundred and fifty-nine,
When Hawke came swooping from the West,
The French King's Admiral with twenty of the line,
Was sailing forth to sack us, out of Brest....

The grey gull sat on a floating whale,
On a floating whale sat he,
And he told his tale of the storm and the gale,
And the ships that he saw with steam and sail,
As he flew by the Northern Sea.
...

(Air: 'Bow, Wow, Wow.')


Now, shut your mouths, you loafers all,
You vex me with your twaddle,
You own a nag or big or small,
A bridle and a saddle;
I you advise at once be wise...

I.

I see them still, when poring o'er
Old volumes of romantic lore,
Ride forth to hawk in days of yore,
By woods and promontories;
Knights in gold lace, plumes and gems,...

Where, under Loughrigg, the stream
Of Rotha sparkles, the fields
Are green, in the house of one
Friendly and gentle, now dead,
Wordsworth's son-in-law, friend,
Four years since, on a mark'd...

ENVOY


My songs were once of the sunrise:
They shouted it over the bar;
First-footing the dawns, they flourished,
And flamed with the morning star.

My songs are now of the sunset:...

All the golden air is full of balm and bloom
Where the hawthorns line the shelving dyke with flowers.
Joyous children born of April's happiest hours,
High and low they laugh and lighten, knowing their doom...

MAY 23, 1864

How beautiful it was, that one bright day
In the long week of rain!
Though all its splendor could not chase away
The omnipresent pain.
...

Child, lover, servant, master of Romance,
To you she showed, not splendid of attire,
With gaud and grace, but all to your desire
In lonelier hues of solemn radiance!...

I
Dawn is alive in the world, and the darkness of heaven and of earth
Subsides in the light of a smile more sweet than the loud noon's mirth,
Spring lives as a babe lives, glad and divine as the sun, and unsure...

"You come and see me, boys," he said;
"You'll find a welcome and a bed
And whiskey any time you call;
Although our township hasn't got
The name of quite a lively spot,
You see, I live in Booligal.
...

'Tis merry ov a zummer's day,
When vo'k be out a-haul'n hay,
Where boughs, a-spread upon the ground,
Do me'ke the staddle big an' round;
An' grass do stand in pook, or lie...

A region desolate and wild.
Black, chafing water: and afloat,
And lonely as a truant child
In a waste wood, a single boat:
No mast, no sails are set thereon;
It moves, but never moveth on:...

I hope my readers will regard that varry gooid advice, when they see th' grass cut - "Mak hay woll th 'sun shines." There's nowt aw like better nor to spend a day or two in a hay field. Tawk abaat "Ho de Colong!" It doesn't sme...