Works

("Sentiers o' l'herbe se balance.")

[Bk. III. xi., July, 1853.]


O paths whereon wild grasses wave!
O valleys! hillsides! forests hoar!
Why are ye silent as the grave?...

1.
O world! O life! O time!
On whose last steps I climb,
Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime?
No more - Oh, never more!

2....

I.

White moons may come, white moons may go,
She sleeps where wild wood blossoms blow,
Nor knows she of the rosy June,
Star-silver flowers o'er her strewn,
The pearly paleness of the moon, -...

I.
Who hath known the ways of time
Or trodden behind his feet?
There is no such man among men.
For chance overcomes him, or crime
Changes; for all things sweet
In time wax bitter again....

It was bound fast here you saw him, and wondered to see him,
Our fair-haired Donough, and he after being condemned;
There was a little white cap on him in place of a hat,...

We mourn the loss of our little pet,
And sigh o'er her hapless fate,
For never more by the fire she'll sit,
Nor play by the old green gate.

The little grave where her infant sleeps...

The waterfall is calling me
With its merry gleesome flow,
And the green boughs are beckoning me,
To where the wild flowers grow:

I may not go, I may not go,
To where the sunny waters flow,...

Low lies the mere beneath the moorside, still
And glad of silence: down the wood sweeps clear
To the utmost verge where fed with many a rill
Low lies the mere.
...

"A land without ruins is a land without memories --
a land without memories is a land without history.
A land that wears a laurel crown may be fair to see;...

Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, for here
There is such matter for all feeling.
- Childe Harold.


I
Unwelcome shroud of the forgotten dead,
Oblivion's dreary fountain, where art thou:...

Sweet, sweet!
I rise to greet
The sapphire sky
The air slips by
On either side
As up I ride
On mounting wing,
And sing and sing -
Then reach my bliss,
The sun's great kiss;...

When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm
Across green fields and yellow hills of hay
The little twittering birds laugh in his way
And poise triumphant on his shining arm....

God preserve us!--there's nothing now safe from assault;--
Thrones toppling around, churches brought to the hammer;
And accounts have just reached us that one Mr. Galt...

He led her out across the sand,
And by her side did sit:
He asked to hold her little hand,
She sweetly answered, "Nit."

Ann, Ann!
Come! Quick as you can!
There's a fish that talks
In the frying-pan.
Out of the fat,
As clear as glass,
He put up his mouth
And moaned 'Alas!'
Oh, most mournful,...

Krinken was a little child--
It was summer when he smiled;
Oft the hoary sea and grim
Stretched its white arms out to him,
Calling: "Sun-Child, come to me,
Let me warm my heart with thee"--...

The Northland reared his hoary head
And spied the Southland leagues away--
"Fairest of all fair brides," he said,
"Be thou my bride, I pray!"

Whereat the Southland laughed and cried...

My neighbor's farm and mine lie side by side,
And nothing should our mutual trust divide;
But they who made th' original survey
Were guided by the stars, the records say,...

(P McD)


We waited for him, and the anxious days
Melted to years and floated slowly by
We spoke of him kind words of lofty praise,
Of yearning love and tender sympathy.
...

What lively lad most pleasured me
Of all that with me lay?
I answer that I gave my soul
And loved in misery,
But had great pleasure with a lad
That I loved bodily.
...