MARGARET. O SWEET pale Margaret, What lit your eyes with tearful power, From all things outward you have won A tearful grace, as though you stood Between the rainbow and the sun. The very smile before you speak, Of dainty sorrow without sound, You love, remaining peacefully, To hear the murmur of the strife, Your spirit is the calmed sea, Laid by the tumult of the fight. You are the evening star, alway Remaining betwixt dark and bright: Lulled echoes of laborious day Come to you, gleams of mellow light What can it matter, Margaret, What songs below the waning stars The lion-heart, Plantagenet, Sang looking through his prison bars? The last wild thought of Chatelet, A fairy shield your Genius made And gave you on your natal day. Than your twin-sister, Adeline. But ever trembling through the dew O sweet pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret, Come down, come down, and hear me speak: The sun is just about to set. The arching limes are tall and shady, Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady, Look out below your bower-eaves, THE BLACKBIRD. O Blackbird! sing me something well: While all the neighbors shoot thee round; I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell. The espaliers and the standards all Are thine; the range of lawn and park: The unnetted blackhearts ripen dark, All thine, against the garden wall. Yet, though I spared thee all the spring, A golden bill! the silver tongue, That made thee famous once, when young: And in the sultry garden-squares, Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse, I hear thee not at all, or hoarse As when a hawker hawks his wares. Take warning! he that will not sing THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. I. FULL knee-deep lies the winter snow, Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, And tread softly and speak low, Old year, you must not die; II. He lieth still: he doth not move: He gave me a friend, and a true, true-love, So long as you have been with us, III. He frothed his bumpers to the brim; But though his eyes are waxing dim, Old year, you shall not die ; We did so laugh and cry with you, IV. He was full of joke and jest, But all his merry quips are o'er. 111 To see him die, across the waste Every one for his own. The night is starry and cold, my friend, V. How hard he breathes! over the snow The cricket chirps: the light burns low : Shake hands, before you die. Old year, we'll dearly rue for you: VI. His face is growing sharp and thin. And waiteth at the door. There's a new foot on the floor, my friend, To J. S. I. THE wind, that beats the mountain, blows And gently comes the world to those |