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THE WOOING-SONG.

On pleasant is the fisher's life,
By the waters streaming;
And pleasant is the poet's life,
Ever, ever dreaming;
And pleasant is the hunter's life,
O'er the meadows riding;

And pleasant is the sailor's life,

On the seas abiding!

But, oh! the merry life is wooing, is wooing; Never overtaking, and always pursuing !

The hunter, when the chase is done,

Laugheth loud and drinketh;

The poet, at the set of sun,

Sigheth deep, and thinketh;

The sailor, though from sea withdrawn,
Dreams he's half seas over,

The fisher dreameth of the dawn,
But, what dreams the lover?

He dreams that the merry life is wooing, is wooing;

Never overtaking, and always pursuing!

Some think that life is very long,
And murmur at the measure;
Some think it is a siren-song-

A short, false, fleeting pleasure;
Some sigh it out in gloomy shades,
Thinking naught, nor doing;

But we'll ne'er think it gloomy, maids!
While there's time for wooing.

For, sure, the merry life is wooing, is wooing;
Never overtaking, and always pursuing !

THE OWL.

Is the hollow tree, in the old gray tower,
The spectral Owl doth dwell;
Dull, hated, despised, in the sunshine hour,
But at dusk-he's abroad and well!
Not a bird of the forest e'er mates with him;
All mock him outright, by day:

But at night, when the woods grow still and dim,

The boldest will shrink away!

Oh, when the night falls, and roosts the fowl,

Then, then is the reign of the Horned Owl!

And the Owl hath a bride, who is fond and bold,

And loveth the wood's deep gloom;

And, with eyes like the shine of the moonstone cold,

She awaiteth her ghastly groom!

Not a feather she moves, not a carol she sings,
As she waits in her tree so still;
But when her heart heareth his flapping wings,
She hoots out her welcome shrill !

Oh, when the moon shines, and dogs do
howl!

Then, then is the joy of the Horned Owl!

Mourn not for the Owl, nor his gloomy plight! The Owl hath his share of good:

If a prisoner he be in the broad daylight,
He is lord in the dark green-wood!
Nor lonely the bird, nor his ghastly mate,
They are each unto each a pride:
Thrice fonder, perhaps, since a strange dark
fate

Hath rent them from all beside !

So, when the night falls and dogs do howl,
Sing, Ho! for the reign of the Horned
Owl!

We know not alway

Who are kings by day,

But the king of the night is the bold brown Owl.

THE HUMBER FERRY.

BOATMAN, hither! Furl your sail!
Row us o'er the Humber ferry!
Furl it close! The blustering gale
Seems as he would fain be merry.
Pleasant is he, when in fun

He blows about the bud or berry;
But his mirth we fain would shun
Out upon the Humber ferry!

Now, bold fisher, shall we go

With thee o'er the Humber River? Hear'st thou how the blast doth blow? See'st thou how thy sail doth shiver? Wilt thou dare (dismayed by naught) Wind and wave, thou bold sea-liver? And shall we, whom Love hath taught, Tremble at the rolling river?

Row us forth! Unfurl thy sail !
What care we for tempest blowing?
Let us kiss the blustering gale!

Let us breast the waters flowing! Though the North rush cold and loud, Love shall warm and make us merry; Though the waves all weave a shroud, We will dare the Humber ferry!

A REPOSE.

SHE sleeps among her pillows soft, (A dove, now wearied with her flight), And all around, and all aloft,

Hang flutes and folds of virgin white: Her hair outdarkens the dark night,

Her glance outshines the starry sky; But now her locks are hidden quite,

And closed is her fringed eye!

She sleepeth: wherefore doth she start?
She sigheth: doth she feel no pain?
None, none! the dream is near her heart:
The spirit of sleep is in her brain.
He cometh down like golden rain,
Without a wish, without a sound;
He cheers the sleeper (ne'er in vain)
Like May, when earth is winter-bound.

All day within some cave he lies,

Dethroned from his nightly sway

Far fading when the dawning skies

Our souls with wakening thoughts array. Two Spirits of might doth man obey;

By each he's wrought, from each he learns: The one is lord of life by day;

The other when starry Night returns.

MAUREEN.

THE Cottage is here, as of old I remember;

The pathway is worn, as it ever hath been;

I LOVE MY LOVE, BECAUSE HE LOVES

ME.

MAN, man loves his steed,

For its blood or its breed,

For its odor the rose, for its honey the bee, His own haughty beauty

From pride or from duty;

But I love my love, because-he loves me.

Oh, my love has an eye, Like a star in the sky,

On the turf-piled hearth there still lives a bright And breath like the sweets from the hawthorn

ember;

But where is Maureen?

tree;

And his heart is a treasure, Whose worth is past measure;

The same pleasant prospect still shineth before And yet he hath given all—all to me!

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Or-I contrive to borrow them

By merry starlight!

Oh, the tradesman he is rich, sirs,
The farmer well to pass,
The soldier he's a lion,

The alderman's an ass;
The courtier he is subtle, sirs,
And the scholar he is bright;
But who, like me, is ever free
In the merry starlight?

We cumber the earth for a hundred years; We learn, we teach;

We fight amid perils, and hopes, and fears, Fame's rock to reach.

We boast that our fellows are sages wrought
In toil and pain;

Yet the common lesson by Nature taught,
Doth vex their brain!

Oh! all things here go ranging, &c.

THE POET'S SONG TO HIS WIFE.

How many summers, love,
Have I been thine?
How many days, my dove,
Hast thou been mine?
Time, like the winged wind
When 't bends the flowers,
Hath left no mark behind,
To count the hours!

Some weight of thought, though loath,
On thee he leaves;

Some lines of care round both

Perhaps he weaves;

Some fears-a soft regret
For joys scarce known;

Sweet looks we halt forget;
All else is flown!

Ah! with what thankless heart
I mourn and sing!
Look, where our children start,
Like sudden spring!
With tongues all sweet and low,
Like a pleasant rhyme,
They tell how much I owe
To thee and time!

WHAT SAY THE CLOUDS ON THE HILL AND PLAIN?

WHAT Say the clouds on the hill and plain? "We come, we go."

What say the springs of the dreaming brain? "We shrink, we flow."

What say the maids in their changeful hours? "We laugh, we cry."

What say the budding and fading flowers?
"We live, we die."

And thus all things go ranging,
From riddle to riddle changing,

From day into night, from life into death,
And no one knows why, my song saith.

A fable is good, and a truth is good,

And loss, and gain;

And the ebb and the flood, and the black pine

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Let her leave thee with no strife,

Tender, mournful, murmuring Life! She hath seen her happy day;

She hath had her bud and blossom;
Now she pales and shrinks away,
Earth, into thy gentle bosom !

She hath done her bidding here,
Angels dear!

Bear her perfect soul above,

Seraph of the skies-sweet Love! Good she was, and fair in youth,

And her mind was seen to soar, And her heart was wed to truth; Take her, then, for evermoreFor ever-evermore!

A BRIDAL DIRGE.

WEAVE no more the marriage-chain !
All unmated is the lover;
Death has taken the place of Pain;
Love doth call on love in vain :

Life and years of hope are over!

No more want of marriage-bell!
No more need of bridal favor!
Where is she to wear them well?
You beside the lover tell!

Gone-with all the love he gave her!

Paler than the stone she lies;

Colder than the winter's morning! Wherefore did she thus despise (She with pity in her eyes)

Mother's care, and lover's warning?

Youth and beauty-shall they not

Last beyond a brief to-morrow? No: a prayer, and then forgot! This the truest lover's lot;

This the sum of human sorrow!

THE RHINE.

WE'VE Sailed through banks of green,
Where the wild waves fret and quiver,
And we've down the Danube been,
The dark deep thundering river!

We've threaded the Elbe and Rhone,

The Tiber and the blood-dyed Seine,
And have watched where the blue Garonne
Goes laughing to meet the main;

But what is so lovely, what is so grand,
As the river that runs through Rhine-land?

On the Rhine River were we born,

Midst its flowers and famous wines, And we know that our country's morn With a treble-sweet aspect shines. Let other lands boast their flowers,

Let other men dream wild dreams; Let them hope they've a land like ours, And a stream, like our stream of streams; Yet, what is half so bright or so grand As the river that runs through Rhine-land?

Are we smit by the blinding sun,

That fell on our tender youth?
Do we coward-like shrink and shun
The thought-telling touch of truth?
On our heads be the sin, then, set!
We'll bear all the shame divine;
But we'll never disown the debt

That we owe to our noble Rhine!

Oh, the Rhine! the Rhine! the broad and the grand,

Is the river that runs through Rhine-land!

THE HIRLAS HORN.

FILL high, fill high the Hirlas horn,
Rimmed, with sunlight, like the morn!
Deep, and vast, and fit to drown
All the troubles of a crown;
Deep, and vast, and crowned with mead,
'Tis a cup for kings indeed,
Full of courage, full of worth,
Making man a god on earth!

Warriors, heroes, Cambrian-born,
Drink-from the Hirlas horn!

Hide with foam the golden tip;
Make it rich for a prince's lip!
Here's to the fame of Roderick dead!
Bards! why do your harps not shed
Music? Come, a mighty draft

To dead Roderick's name be quaffed!
Tell us all the hero won,
All he did, from sun to sun!

Bards and heroes, Cambrian-born,
Drink-from the Hirlas horn!

Fill the horn to Madoc's name,
First in the mighty race of fame,
Eagle-hearted, eagle-eyed,

All hearts shuddered when he died!
Yet, why so? for Tudor rose
Like a lion upon our foes-
Like the wild storm-smitten ocean,
When he puts his strength in motion!
Come, brave spirits, Cambrian-born,
Drink-from the Hirlas horn!

Cambrian people-Cambrian mountains,
Back into your wizard fountains

(Where the Druid seers are dwelling)
Shout unto the crowned Llewellyn!
Patriot hero! monarch! friend!
Wreathed with virtues without end!
First of men 'tween earth and sky!
The sword and the shield of liberty!

Drink, all spirits, Cambrian-born,
Drink to the good, great crowned Llewelyn!
Drink-from the Hirlas horn!

AN EPISTLE TO CHARLES LAMB,

ON HIS EMANCIPATION FROM CLERKSHIP, WRITTEN OVER A FLASK OF SHERRIS,

DEAR LAMB, I drink to thee to thee,
Married to sweet Liberty!
What! old friend, and art thou freed
From the bondage of the pen?
Free from care and toil, indeed?
Free to wander among men
When and howsoe'er thou wilt?
All thy drops of labor spilt
On those huge and figured pages,
Which will sleep unclasped for ages,
Little knowing who did wield

The quill that traversed their white field?

Come-another mighty health!
Thou hast earn'd thy sum of wealth-
Countless ease-immortal leisure-
Days and nights of boundless pleasure,
Checker'd by no dream of pain,
Such as hangs on clerk-like brain
Like a nightmare, and doth press
The happy soul from happiness.

Oh! happy thou-whose all of time
(Day and eve, and morning prime)
Is fill'd with talk on pleasant themes-
Or visions quaint, which come in dreams,
Such as panther'd Bacchus rules,
When his rod is on "the schools,"
Mixing wisdom with their wine-
Or, perhaps, thy wit so fine
Strayeth in some elder book
Whereon our modern Solons look,
With severe ungifted eyes,

Wondering what thou seest to prize.
Happy thou, whose skill can take
Pleasure at each turn, and slake
Thy thirst by every fountain's brink,
Where less wise men would pause to shrink:
Sometimes 'mid stately avenues
With Cowley thou, or Marvel's muse,
Dost walk; or Gray, by Eton towers;
Or Pope, in Hampton's chestnut-bowers:
Or Walton, by his loved Lea stream;
Or dost thou with our Milton dream
Of Eden and the Apocalypse,
And hear the words from his great lips ?

Speak-in what grove or hazel shade,
For "musing meditation made,"
Dost wander?-or on Penshurst lawn,
Where Sidney's fame had time to dawn
And die, ere yet the hate of men
Could envy at his perfect pen?

Or, dost thou, in some London street
(With voices fill'd and thronging feet)
Loiter, with mien 'twixt grave and gay-
Or take, along some pathway sweet,
Thy calm suburban way?

Happy beyond that Man of Ross,

Whom mere content could ne'er engross,

Art thou--with hope, health, "learned leisure," Friends, books, thy thoughts—an endless pleasure!

-Yet-yet-(for when was pleasure made
Sunshine all without a shade?)

Thou, perhaps, as now thou rovest
Through the busy scenes thou lovest,

With an idler's careless look,

Turning some moth-pierced book,
Feel'st a sharp and sudden woe

For visions vanished long ago!

And then, thou think'st how time has fled
Over thy unsilvered head,
Snatching many a fellow-mind
Away, and leaving-what?-behind!
Naught, alas! save joy and pain
Mingled ever, like a strain

Of music where the discords vie
With the truer harmony.

So, perhaps, with thee the vein
Is sullied ever-so the chain
Of babits and affections old,
Like a weight of solid gold,
Presseth on thy gentle breast,
Till sorrow rob thee of thy rest.

Ay, so't must be! E'en I (whose lot
The fairy Love so long forgot),
Seated beside this Sherris wine,
And near to books and shapes divine,
Which poets and the painters past
Have wrought in lines that aye shall last-
E'en I, with Shakespeare's self beside me,
And one whose tender talk can guide me
Through fears, and pains, and troublous themes,
Whose smile doth fall upon my dreams
Like sunshine on a stormy sea-
Want something-when I think of thee!

COME! LET US TO THE LAND.

COME-let us go to the land

Where the violets grow!

Let's go thither, hand in hand,

Over the waters, over the snow,

To the land where the sweet, sweet violets blow!

There-in the beautiful South,

Where the sweet flowers lie,

Thou shalt sing with thy sweeter mouth,
Under the light of the evening sky,

That Love never fades, though violets die!

THE PAST.

THIS Common field, this little brookWhat is there hidden in those two,

That I so often on them look,

Oftener than on the heavens blue? No beauty lies upon the field; Small music doth the river yield; And yet I look and look again, With something of a pleasant pain.

'Tis thirty-can't be thirty years,

Since last I stood upon this plank, Which o'er the brook its figure rears,

And watch'd the pebbles as they sank?
How white the stream! I still remember
Its margin glassed by hoar December,
And how the sun fell on the snow:
Ah! can it be so long ago?

It cometh back :-so blythe, so bright,
It hurries to my eager ken,

As though but one short winter's night

Had darkened o'er the world since then. It is the same clear dazzling scene; Perhaps the grass is scarce as green; Perhaps the river's troubled voice Doth not so plainly say " Rejoice."

Yet Nature surely never ranges,

Ne'er quits her gay and flowery crown; But, ever joyful, merely changes

The primrose for the thistle-down.
'Tis we alone who, waxing old,
Look on her with an aspect cold,
Dissolve her in our burning tears,
Or clothe her with the mists of years!

Then, why should not the grass be green?
And why should not the river's song
Be merry-as they both have been

When I was here an urchin strong?
Ah, true-too true! I see the sun
Through thirty winter years hath run,
For grave eyes mirrored in the brook,
Usurp the urchin's laughing look!

So be it! I have lost and won!

For, once, the past was poor to meThe future dim: and though the sun

Shed life and strength, and I was free, I felt not-knew no grateful pleasure : All seemed but as the common measure: But Now-the experienced spirit old Turns all the leaden past to gold!

I LOVED HER WHEN SHE LOOKED FROM

ME.

I LOVED her when she looked from me,
And hid her stifled sighs:

I loved her too when she did smile
With shy and downcast eyes,

The light within them rounding "like
The young moon in its rise."

I loved her!-Dost thou love no more,
Now she from thee is flown,

To some far-distant-distant shore,
Unfetter'd, and alone?

Peace, peace! I know her; she will come
Again, and be mine own.

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