How often when at work I'm sitting,
And musing sadly on the days of yore,
I think I see my Katie knitting,
And the childer playin' around the cabin door.
I think I see the neighbours' faces
All gathered round their long-lost friend to see; Oh! though no one here knows how fair that place is, Heav'n knows how dear my poor home was to me.
CCCLIX. H. WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 1807
Stars of the summer night!
Far in yon azure deeps,
Hide, hide your golden light!
She sleeps! my lady sleeps! sleeps!
Moon of the summer night!
Far down yon western steeps,
Sink, sink in silver light!
She sleeps! my lady sleeps! sleeps !
Wind of the summer night!
Where yonder woodbine creeps,
Fold, fold thy pinions light,
She sleeps! my lady sleeps! sleeps!
Dreams of the summer night!
Tell her, her lover keeps
Watch! while in slumbers light
She sleeps! my lady sleeps! sleeps!
2. HYMN TO THE NIGHT.
I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!
I felt her presence, by its spell of might
Stoop o'er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.
I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold soft chimes,
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night
Like some old poet's rhymes.
From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose;
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,
From those deep cisterns flows.
O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
And they complain no more.
Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer,
Descend with broad-winged flight,
The welcome, the thrice-prayed-for, the most fair,
The best-beloved Night!
CCCLX. LUCRETIA M. DAVIDSON, 1808--1825,
I come in the breath of the wakened breeze,
I kiss the flowers, and I bend the trees;
And I shake the dew, which hath fallen by night,
From its throne, on the lily's pure bosom of white.
Awake thee, when bright from my couch in the sky,
I beam o'er the mountains, and come from on high;
When my gay purple banners are waving afar;
When my herald, gray dawn, hath extinguish'd each star:
When I smile on the woodlands, and bend o'er the lake,
Then awake thee, O maiden, I bid thee awake!
Thou may'st slumber when all the wide arches of heaven
Glitter bright with the beautiful fires of even;
When the moon walks in glory, and looks from on high,
O'er the clouds floating far through the clear azure sky:
Drifting on like the beautiful vessels of heaven,
To their far-away harbour, all silently driven ;
Bearing on, in their bosoms, the children of light,
Who have fled from this dark world of sorrow and night:
When the lake lies in calmness and darkness, save where
The bright ripple curls, 'neath the smile of a star;
When all is in silence and solitude here,
Then sleep, maiden, sleep! without sorrow or feari
But when I steal silently over the lake,
Awake thee then, maiden, awake! oh, awake!
CCCLXI. MARGARET M. DAVIDSON.
I would fly from the city, would fly from its care,
To my own native plants and my flowers so fair,
To the cool grassy shade and the rivulet bright,
Which reflects the pale moon in its bosom of light;
Again would I view the old cottage so dear,
Where I sported a babe without sorrow or fear;
I would leave this great city, so brilliant and gay,
For a peep at my home on this fair summer day.
I have friends whom I love and would leave with regret,
But the love of my home, oh! 'tis tenderer yet.
CCCLXII. R. MONKTON MILNES
[Lord Houghton], 1809—
THE WORTH OF HOURS.
Believe not that your inner eye
Can ever in just measure try
The worth of hours as they go by ;
For every man's weak self, alas!
Makes him to see them while they pass
As through a dim or tinted glass:
But if in earnest care you would
Mete out to each its part of good,
Trust rather to your after mood.
Those surely are not fairly spent,
That leave your spirit bowed and bent
In sad unrest, and ill content.
And more, though free from seeming harm,
You rest from toil of mind or arm,
Or slow retire from pleasure's charm-
If then a painful sense comes on,
Of something wholly lost and gone,
Vainly enjoyed, or vainly done,—
Or something from your being's chain
Broke off, nor to be link'd again
By all mere Memory can retain,—
Upon your heart this truth may rise,-
Nothing that altogether dies
Suffices man's just destinies :
So should we live, that every hour
May die, as dies the natural flower,--
A self-reviving thing of power;
That every thought and every deed
May hold within itself the seed
Of future good, and future meed;
Esteeming sorrow, whose employ
Is to develop, not destroy,
Far better than a barren joy.
CCCLXIII. ALFRED TENNYSON, 18101. NEW YEAR'S EVE.
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
He clasps the crag with hookèd hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls!
3. THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, And the winter winds are wearily sighing: Toll ye the church bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.
He lieth still: he doth not move :
He will not see the dawn of day.
He hath no other life above.
He gave me a friend, and a true true love,
And the new year will take 'em away.
Old year, you must not go;
So long as you have been with us,
Such joy as you have seen with us,
Old year, you shall not go.
He froth'd his bumpers to the brim ;
A jollier year we shall not see.
But though his eyes are waxing dim,
And though his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me.
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