Oh but for one short hour,- No blessed leisure for love or hope, A little weeping would ease my heart; My tears must stop, for every drop With fingers weary and worn, In poverty, hunger, and dirt; And still with a voice of dolorous pitch- She sang this "Song of the Shirt!" Thomas Hood [1799-1845] STANZAS IN a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, The north cannot undo them, From budding at the prime. In a drear-nighted December, But with a sweet forgetting, Never, never petting About the frozen time. Ah! would 'twere so with many A gentle girl and boy! Was never said in rhyme. John Keats [1795-1821] THE DEAD FAITH SHE made a little shadow-hidden grave The day Faith died; Therein she laid it, heard the clod's sick fall, And smiled aside "If less I ask," tear-blind, she mocked, "I may Be less denied." She set a rose to blossom in her hair, The day Faith died— "Now glad," she said, "and free at last, I go, And life is wide." But through long nights she stared into the dark, And knew she lied. Fannie Heaslip Lea [1884 THE BALLAD OF THE BOAT THE stream was smooth as glass, we said, "Arise and let's away": The Siren sang beside the boat that in the rushes lay; And spread the sail, and strong the oar, we gaily took our way. When shall the sandy bar be crossed? When shall we find the bay? The broadening flood swells slowly out o'er cattle-dotted plains, The stream is strong and turbulent, and dark with heavy rains; The laborer looks up to see our shallop speed away. When shall the sandy bar be crossed? When shall we find the bay? Now are the clouds like fiery shrouds; the sun, superbly large, Slow as an oak to woodman's stroke sinks flaming at their marge. The waves are bright with mirrored light as jacinths on our way. When shall the sandy bar be crossed? When shall we find the bay? The moon is high up in the sky, and now no more we see The sea-gull shrieks high overhead, and dimly to our sight The moonlit crests of foaming waves gleam towering through the night. We'll steal upon the mermaid soon, and start her from her lay, When once the sandy bar is crossed, and we are in the bay. What rises white and awful as a shroud-enfolded ghost? What roar of rampant tumult bursts in clangor on the coast? Pull back! pull back! The raging flood sweeps every oar away. O stream, is this thy bar of sand? O boat, is this the bay? Richard Garnett [1835-1906] ELDORADO GAILY bedight, A gallant knight In sunshine and in shadow Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado. But he grew old This knight so bold And o'er his heart a shadow No spot of ground And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow: "Shadow," said he, "Where can it be― This land of Eldorado?" "Over the mountains Of the moon, Down the valley of the Shadow Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied, "If you seek for Eldorado!" Edgar Allan Poe [1809-1849] A LOST CHORD SEATED one day at the Organ, I was weary and ill at ease, I do not know what I was playing, It flooded the crimson twilight, It quieted pain and sorrow, Like love overcoming strife; It seemed the harmonious echo From our discordant life. It linked all perplexèd meanings Into one perfect peace, As if it were loth to cease. I have sought, but I seek it vainly, Which came from the soul of the Organ, It may be that Death's bright angel It may be that only in Heaven I shall hear that grand Amen. Adelaide Anne Procter [1825-1864] |