"You run about, my little maid, If two are in the churchyard laid, "Their graves are green, they may be seen,' "Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, And they are side by side. "My stockings there I often knit, My kerchief there I hem ; And there upon the ground I sít, "And often after sunset, sir, The first that died was little Jane; Till God released her of her pain; "So in the churchyard she was laid; And, all the summer dry, Together round her grave we played, My brother John and I. "And when the ground was white with snow, And I could run and slide, My brother John was forced to go, And he lies by her side." "How many are you, then," said I, "If they two are in heaven ?" The little maiden did reply, "O master! we are seven. "But they are dead; those two are dead! Their spirits are in heaven!" 'T was throwing words away; for still The little maid would have her will, And said, "Nay, we are seven !" WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. THE BANKS O' DOON YE banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, An' I sae weary, fu' o' care! Thou 'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird, Departed Thou 'lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird, For sae I sat, and sae I sang, Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon, To see the rose and woodbine twine; And ilka bird sang o' its luve, And fondly sae did I o' mine. Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, MY LOVE IS DEAD O, SING unto my roundelay! Dance no more at holiday; My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, ROBERT BURNS. Black his hair as the summer night, Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note ; Deft his tabor, cudgel stout; O, he lies by the willow-tree. My love is dead, etc. Hark! the raven flaps his wing See the white moon shines on high; Here upon my true-love's grave With my hands I 'll bind the briers Come, with acorn-cup and thorn Water-witches, crowned with reytes, THOMAS CHATTERTON. NEVERMORE NO MORE — no more — O, nevermore on me Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee : LORD BYRON (Don Juan). BREAK, BREAK, BREAK BREAK, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! That he sings in his boat on the bay. To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanished hand, Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. DAY dawned; A LIFE within a curtained room, Filled to faintness with perfume, A lady lay at point of doom. Day closed; a child had seen the light ; She rested in undreaming night. Spring rose; the lady's grave was green, A gentle boy, with thoughtful mien. Years fled; - he wore a manly face, And then he died! Behold before ye Life Death - and all that is of Glory. BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (BARRY CORNWALL). IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN WITH heavy head bent on her yielding hand, With restless lips, and most unquiet eyes, A maiden sits and looks out on the night. The darkness presses close against the pane, Through whose wide branches steals the white-faced moon She hears the wind upon the pavement fall, Or folds more close the ripples of her hair; And through its music all her thoughts are seen; For all the burden of the song she sings Is, "O my God! it might have been!" Alas! that words like these should have the power Some hope, dismantled of its love and truth That 'mid the shadows of her memory lies Some grave, moss-covered, where she loves to lean, And sadly sing unto the form therein, "It might have been O God! it might have been !" We all have in our hearts some hidden place, To seek the pathways where it once was seen, With this wild cry, "O God! it might have been!" We mourn in secret o'er some buried love In the far past, whence love does not return, And strive to find among its ashes grey Some lingering spark that yet may live and burn; We flee away, far from the hopeless scene, Where'er we go, in sunlight or in shade, We mourn some jewel which the heart has missed Some brow we touched in days long since gone bySome lips whose freshness and first dew we kissed; We shut out from our eyes the happy light Of sunbeams dancing on the hill-side green, And, like the maiden, ope them to the light And cry, like her, “O God! it might have been!" ANONYMOUS. |