dark

Streets of the roaring town,
Hush for him, hus, be still!
He comes, who was stricken down
Doing the word of our will.
Hush! Let him have his state,
Give him his soldier's crown.
The grists of trade can wait
Their grinding at the mill,
But he cannot wait for his honor, now the trumpet has been blown.
Wreathe pride now for his granite brow, lay love on his breast of stone.

Toll! Let the great bells toll
Till the clashing air is dim.
Did we wrong this parted soul?
We will make it up to him.

How is one to describe this king of mountains? Throught the whole of Ch'i and
Lu one never loses sight of its greenness. In it the Creator has concentrated
all that is numinous and beautiful. Its northern and southern slopes divide the
dawn from the dark. The layered clouds begin at the climber's heaving chest,
and homing birds fly suddenly within range of his straining eyes. One day I
must stand on top of its highest peak and at a single glance see all the other
mountains grown tiny beneath me.

THE RIVER widens to a pathless sea
Beneath the rain and mist and sullen skies.
Look out the window; ’t is a gray emprise,
This piloting of massed humanity
On such a day, from shore to busy shore,
And breeds the thought that beauty is no more.

But see yon woman in the cabin seat,
The Southland in her face and foreign dress;
She bends above a babe, with tenderness
That mothers use; her mouth grows soft and sweet.
Then, lifting eyes, ye saints in heaven, what pain

Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee,
With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!
Though cold and stark and bare,
The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee.

Thy mother's treasure wert thou;—alas! no longer
To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be
Thy father's pride:—ah, he
Must gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger.

To me, as I move thee now in the last duty,
Dost thou with a turn or gesture anon respond;
Startling my fancy fond

PERFECT little body, without fault or stain on thee,
   With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!
   Though cold and stark and bare,
The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee.

Thy mother's treasure wert thou;--alas! no longer
   To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be
   Thy father's pride:--ah, he
Must gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger.

To me, as I move thee now in the last duty,
Dost thou with a turn or gesture anon respond;

O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods against the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!
To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!
I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!
I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,

Old Mother Laidinwool had nigh twelve months been dead.
She heard the hops was doing well, an' so popped up her head
For said she: "The lads I've picked with when I was young and fair,
They're bound to be at hopping and I'm bound to meet 'em there!"

Let me up and go
Back to the work I know, Lord!
Back to the work I know, Lord!
For it is dark where I lie down, My Lord!
An' it's dark where I lie down!

Old Mother Laidinwool, she give her bones a shake,

Oh! think not my spirits are always as light,
And as free from a pang as they seem to you now,
Nor expect that the heart-beaming smile of to-night
Will return with to-morrow to brighten my brow.
No: -- life is a waste of wearisome hours,
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns;
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers,
Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.
But send round the bowl, and be happy awhile --
May we never meet worse, in our pilgrimage here,

Oh! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade,
Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid:
Sad, silent, and dark, be the tears that we shed,
As the night-dew that falls on the grass o'er his head.

But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps,
Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps;
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.

Old well,
a fish leaps--
dark sound.

Translated by Robert Hass