You don't rikollect her, I reckon? No; you wasn't a year old then! And now yer-how old air you? W'y, child, not "twenty!" When? And yer nex' birthday's in Aprile? and you want to git married that day? I wisht yer mother was livin'! — but — I hain't got nothin' to say! Twenty year! and as good a gyrl as parent ever found! There's a straw ketched onto yer dress there - I'll bresh it off-turn round. (Her mother was jes' twenty when us two run away!) Nothin' to say, my daughter! Nothin' at all to say! JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. KATHLEEN MAVOURNEEN. KATHLEEN MAVOURNEEN! the grey dawn is breaking, The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill; The lark from her light wing the bright dew is shaking, Kathleen Mavourneen! what, slumbering still? Oh! hast thou forgotten how soon we must sever? Oh! hast thou forgotten this day we must part? It may be for years, and it may be forever! Oh! why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart? Kathleen Mavourneen! awake from thy slumbers! The blue mountains glow in the sun's golden light! Ah! where is the spell that once hung on my numbers! Arise in thy beauty, thou star of my night! Mavourneen, Mavourneen, my sad tears are falling, To think that from Erin and thee I must part! It may be for years, and it may be forever! Then why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart? MRS. CRAWFORD. -Music by F. Nicholls Crouch. PERSONAL POEMS. A COLLECTION OF SONNETS. TO MR. GRAY. NOT that her blooms are marked with beauty's hue, Thy pensive genius strikes the moral strings; BLANCO WHITE. COULDST thou in calmness yield thy mortal breath, Decline the ways of sin that downward slope? (Brave witness like thine own!),—dare hope and pray That thou, set free from this imprisoning clay, Now clad in raiment of perpetual youth, May find that bliss untold, 'mid endless day, Awaits each earnest soul that lives for Truth! SARA COLERIDGE (1803-1852). The Human Soul; as when, pushed off the shore, Thy mystic bark would through the darkness sweep, Itself the while so bright! For oft we seemed TO WORDSWORTH. THERE have been poets that in verse display And many are the smooth, elaborate tribe 'Tis thine to celebrate the thoughts that make The life of souls, the truths for whose sweet sake We to ourselves and to our God are dear. Of Nature's inner shrine thou art the priest, Where most she works when we perceive her least. HARTLEY COLERIDGE (1796-1849). MILTON. He left the upland lawns and serene air TO THE MEMORY OF SYDNEY DOBELL. AND thou, too, gone! one more bright soul away To swell the mighty sleepers 'neath the sod; One less to honor and to love, and say, Who lives with thee doth live half-way to God! My chaste-souled Sydney! thou wast carved too fine nigh. Oh! if we owe warm thanks to Heaven, 'tis when SHAKESPEARE. SHAKESPEARE! to such name sounding what succeeds Fitly as silence! Falter forth the spell Act follows word, the speaker knows full well, Nor tampers with its magic more than needs. -Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads With his soul only if from lips it fell, Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven, and hell, Would own, "Thou didst create us!" Naught impedes. We voice the other name, man's most of might, THOMAS CARLYLE AND GEORGE ELIOT. Two souls diverse out of our human sight Pass, followed one with love and each with wonder: The stormy sophist with his mouth of thunder, Clothed with loud words and mantled with the might Of darkness and magnificence of night; And one whose eye could smite the night in sunder, Searching if light or no light were thereunder, And found in love of loving-kindness light. Duty divine and Thought with eyes of fire |