English

Have pity, pity, friends, have pity on me,
Thus much at least, may it please you, of your grace!
I lie not under hazel or hawthorn-tree
Down in this dungeon ditch, mine exile's place
By leave of God and fortune's foul disgrace.
Girls, lovers, glad young folk and newly wed,
Jumpers and jugglers, tumbling heel o'er head,
Swift as a dart, and sharp as needle-ware,
Throats clear as bells that ring the kine to shed,
Your poor old friend, what, will you leave him there?

Singers that sing at pleasure, lawlessly,

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!

We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy--young jackanapes!--show him the door!
"Gray temples at twenty?"--Yes! white if we please;
Where the snowflakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!
Look close--you will see not a sign of a flake!

He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes! You may trace his footsteps now
On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown hill's withered brow.
He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their pleasant green came forth,
And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, have shaken them down to earth.

He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes! from the frozen Labrador,
From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which the white bear wanders o'er,
Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the luckless forms below

Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie!
Your impudence protects you sairly:
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho' faith, I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner,
How dare ye set your fit upon her,
Sae fine a lady!
Gae somewhere else, and seek your dinner
On some poor body.

Swith, in some beggar's haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle
Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle,

Green sleeves and tartan ties
Mark my truelove where she lies;
I'll be at her or she rise,
My fiddle and I thegither. —

Be it by the chrystal burn,
Be it by the milk-white thorn,
I shall rouse her in the morn,
My fiddle and I thegither. —

Say not, that in old age,
No joys, no pleasures dwell;
That it is but a page,
Which only sorrows tell.

Say not, in age we find
Nought but a wintry shore;
Round which the northern wind,
And raging ocean roar.

Say not, that like the tree
Scorch'd by the light'ning's wing;
That thus old age will be,
A sear'd and barren thing.

Say not, 'tis like the sun
Sinking in western skies;
When storm-clouds have begun
To shut him from our eyes.

O no, 'tis like the shore

What more delightful than to wander forth
In spring, before the sun has chas'd away
The freshness of the morn; or shook the dew
From off the tender grass? Nature seems
As young, as when the morning light first broke
On Eden; as calm the river's surface;
And the birds as sweetly tune their morning
Hymn. Beneath the shade of oak reflected
In the sleeping stream, I set me down,
And muse and gaze on the unrival'd scene.
Would that my thoughts could speak, my tongue describe
The pleasures, that a scene like this affords!

Hast thou ever heard the voice of nature,
In the whirlwind's roar, the zephyr's gentle
Breath, in the fierce eagle's cry, when darting
Forth he seeks the spoiler of his nest,
In the soft whispering voice of love with
Which the dove salutes his mate? or hast thou
Seen nature put forth her force in various
Forms, the lightning rend the solid oak,
The lofty cedars bend like reeds before
The blast, the madden'd ocean lash the shore
With foam, or hast thou seen the rising sun,
When first he looks forth on a summer's day,

Half asleep,
chanting a No play,
his rear end for a drum

" Green Spring "

Green spring, start of the second month,
colors of things turning fresh and new.
At this time I take my begging bowl,
in high spirits tramp the streets of town.
Little boys suddenly spot me,
delightedly come crowding around,
descend on me at the temple gate,
dragging on my arms, making steps slow.
I set my bowl on top of a white stone,
hang my alms bag on a green tree limb;
here we fight a hundred grasses,
here we hit the temari ball —