Offer up
cherry blossoms
to the deceased,
if anyone wishes to mourn me
after I'm gone.

Give me a Happy Heart and suasive tongue,
That I may cheer the aged and the young;
That I may charm the little child,
And make the winds of age seem mild.

Give me the willing hand and ready feet,
To raise the brother lying in the street;
Give me the honest heart that has no fear,
That with the humble I may shed a tear.

Give me the eye of faith that I may see
Some good accomplished daily Lord for Thee —
Give me a heart full of Thy holy zeal,
That I my neighbors joy or woe may feel.

Give me a boy whose tender skin
Owes its fresh bloom to youth, not art;
And for his sake may no girl win
A corner in my heart.

Give honor and love for evermore
To this great man gone to rest;
Peace on the dim Plutonian shore,
Rest in the land of the blest.

I reckon him greater than any man
That ever drew sword in war;
I reckon him nobler than king or khan,
Braver and better by far.

And wisest he in this whole wide land
Of hoarding till bent and gray;
For all you can hold in your cold dead hand
Is what you have given away.

So whether to wander the stars or to rest
Forever hushed and dumb,
He gave with a zest and he gave his best —

1. Give ear, O God, to my loud cry, And to my prayer attend;
2. And now my heart is overwhelmed, Ready to fall and die,
As from the corners of the earth, My cries to thee ascend.
O lead me up into the rock, That higher is than I.

3. For in my danger thou hast been,
A shelter safe to me;
A tower of strength and sure defense
Against my enemy.

4. Within thy tabernacle I
Forever will abide;
And in the covert of thy wings
Will trust and safely hide.

5. For thou, O God, hast heard my vows,
As they before thee came;

Give attention to my ditty and I'll not keep you long;
I'll endeavour for to please you if you'll listen to my song.
I'll tell you an ancient story, the doings and the ways,
The manners and the customs of my grandfather's days.

Of many years that's gone and past, which hundreds do say hard,
When Adam was a little boy and worked in Chatham Yard,
We had no Waterloo soldiers dressed out in scarlet clothes;
The people were not frightened by one man's big, long nose.

We had not got Lord Brougham to pass the Poor Law Bill;

The girt woak tree that's in the dell!
There's noo tree I do love so well;
Vor times an' times when I wer young,
I there've a-climbed, an' there've a-zwung,
An' picked the eäcorns green, a-shed
In wrestlen storms vrom his broad head.
An' down below's the cloty brook
Where I did vish with line an' hook,
An' beät, in plaÿèsome dips and zwims,
The foamy stream, wi' white-skinned lim's.
An' there my mother nimbly shot
Her knitten-needles, as she zot
At evenen down below the wide
Woak's head, wi' father aTher zide.

The girl from Ch'ang-kan is just fourteen years old:
on a spring ramble, she comes upon a temple
from the Southern Dynasties.
With her elegant, soft hairdo she bows slowly to Buddha,
lowers her head — and drops a gold hairpin to the ground!
A young man who visits the temple that day
picks up the hairpin with its inlay of kingfisher.
He takes it home with him, not knowing whose it is,
and stands unhappily, smelling its fragrant odor
again and again.

Gipsy man, O gipsy man,
In your yellow caravan,
Up and down the world you go —
Tell me all the things you know!

Sun and moon and stars are bright,
Summer's green and winter's white,
And I'm the gayest gipsy man
That rides inside a caravan.

The gipsies seek wide sheltering woods again,
With droves of horses flock to mark their lane,
And trample on dead leaves, and hear the sound,
And look and see the black clouds gather round,
And set their camps, and free from muck and mire,
And gather stolen sticks to make the fire.
The roasted hedgehog, bitter though as gall,
Is eaten up and relished by them all.
They know the woods and every fox's den
And get their living far away from men;
The shooters ask them where to find the game,
The rabbits know them and are almost tame.