Willie, all to you and me no other word Stands-God sure the child's prayers heard Near the Alma River. Willie, listen to the bells Ringing in the town to-day; Hundreds, thousands. Let us weep, Come, - we'll lay us down, my child; DINAH MARIA MULOCK. THE WIFE TO HER HUSBAND. LINGER not long. Home is not home without thee: Its dearest tokens do but make me mourn. O, let its memory, like a chain about thee, Gently compel and hasten thy return! Linger not long. Though crowds should woo thy staying, Bethink thee, can the mirth of thy friends, though dear, Compensate for the grief thy long delaying Costs the fond heart that sighs to have thee here? Linger not long. How shall I watch thy coming, As evening shadows stretch o'er moor and dell; When the wild bee hath ceased her busy humming, And silence hangs on all things like a spell ! WHAT shall I do with all the days and hours Weary with longing? Shall I flee away Of casting from me God's great gift of time? Shall I, these mists of memory locked within, Leave and forget life's purposes sublime? O, how or by what means may I contrive To bring the hour that brings thee back more near? How may I teach my drooping hope to live Until that blessed time, and thou art here? I will this dreary blank of absence make More good than I have won since yet I live. So may this doomed time build up in me A thousand graces, which shall thus be thine; So may my love and longing hallowed be, And thy dear thought an influence divine. FRANCES ANNE KEMBLR DISAPPOINTMENT AND ESTRANGEMENT. THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE. 66 FROM MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM." FOR aught that ever I could read, The course of true love never did run smooth: SHAKESPEARE. THE BANKS O' DOON. YE banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, And I sae weary, fu' o' care? Thou 'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird, 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 pou'd a rose, Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree; And my fause luver stole my rose, But ah! he left the thorn wi' me. ROBERT BURNS. AULD ROBIN GRAY. And auld Robin Gray cam' a-courtin' me. My father cou'dna work, and my mother cou'dna spin; I toiled day and nicht, but their bread I cou'dna win; Auld Rob maintained them baith, and, wi' tears in his ee, Said, "Jenny, for their sakes, O marry me!" My heart it said nay, for I looked for Jamie back; But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was a wrack; The ship it was a wrack! Why didna Jamie dee? Or why do I live to say, Wae's me? O sair, sair did we greet, and muckle did we say ; WHEN the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin; hame, And a' the warld to sleep are gane; The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my ee, When my gudeman lies sound by me. I daurna think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin; LADY ANNE BARNARD. AULD ROB MORRIS. THERE's auld Rob Morris that wons in yon glen, He's the king o' guid fellows and wale of auld men: He has gowd in his coffers, he has owsen and kine, And ae bonnie lassie, his darling and mine. She's fresh as the morning, the fairest in May; She's sweet as the ev'ning amang the new hay; As blythe and as artless as the lambs on the lea, And dear to my heart as the light to my e'e. But O, she's an heiress, auld Robin's a laird, And my daddie has naught but a cot-house and yard; A wooer like me maunna hope to come speed, The wounds I must hide that will soon be my dead. Beside the sceptre. Thus I made my home ransom From those twin jailers of the daring heart, And passion taught me poesy, The day comes to me, but delight brings me Of beauty!· nane: The night comes to me, but my rest it is gane; I wander my lane like a night-troubled ghaist, And I sigh as my heart it wad burst in my breast. O, had she but been of a lower degree, not; - for it was sweet, But still toiled on, hoped on, I then might hae hoped she wad smiled upon At last, in one mad hour, I dared to pour me! O, how past describing had then been my bliss, As now my distraction no words can express! ROBERT BURNS. The thoughts that burst their channels into song, And sent them to thee, such a tribute, lady, As beauty rarely scorns, even from the meanest. The name -appended by the burning heart That longed to show its idol what bright things It had created-yea, the enthusiast's name, CLAUDE MELNOTTE'S APOLOGY AND That should have been thy triumph, was thy And joy and freshness, as spring itself Have stooped from their high sphere; how Love, like Death, Levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook You told me of your toilsome past; You did not see the bitter trace You walk the sunny side of fate; The wise world smiles, and calls you great; Your life's proud aim, your art's high truth, I used to dream in all these years Of patient faith and silent tears, That Love's strong hand would put aside FLORENCE PERCY. "How sweetly," said the trembling maid, Were wafted off to seas unknown, Where not a pulse should beat but ours, And we might live, love, die alone! Far from the cruel and the cold, — Where the bright eyes of angels only Should come around us, to behold A paradise so pure and lonely! Would this be world enough for thee?" Playful she turned, that he might see The passing smile her cheek put on ; But when she marked how mournfully His eyes met hers, that smile was gone; And, bursting into heartfelt tears, "Yes, yes," she cried, "my hourly fears, My dreams, have boded all too right, We part forever part-to-night! I knew, I knew it could not last, I've seen my fondest hopes decay; To glad me with its soft black eye, And love me, it was sure to die! THOMAS Moore. UNREQUITED LOVE. 66 FROM TWELFTH NIGHT." VIOLA. Ay, but I know, VIOLA. Too well what love women to men may owe: In faith, they are as true of heart as we. My father had a daughter loved a man, As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship. DUKE. And what's her history? VIOLA. A blank, my lord. She never told In the spring a livelier iris changes on the her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, burnished dove; In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young, We men may say more, swear more: but, indeed, And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung. And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me; Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee." COMRADES, leave me here a little, while as yet On her pallid cheek and forehead came a color 't is early morn, and a light, Leave me here, and when you want me, sound As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the upon the bugle horn. northern night. 'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the And she turned, her bosom shaken with a curlews call, sudden storm of sighs; Dreary gleams about the moorland, flying over All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the mellow shade, the chords with might; Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, passed braid. in music out of sight. Here about the beach I wandered, nourishing a Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the youth sublime copses ring, With the fairy tales of science, and the long And her whisper thronged my pulses with the result of time; fulness of the spring. When the centuries behind me like a fruitful Many an evening by the waters did we watch the land reposed; stately ships, When I clung to all the present for the promise | And our spirits rushed together at the touching that it closed; of the lips. When I dipt into the future far as human eye O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, could see, mine no more! Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, that would be. In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; barren shore ! |