From Stirling Castle we had seen
The mazy Forth unravell'd,
Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay,
And with the Tweed had travell'd;
And when we came to Clovenford,
Then said my "winsome Marrow,'
"Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside,
And see the Braes of Yarrow.'

"Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town,
Who have been buying, selling,
Go back to Yarrow, 'tis their own,
Each maiden to her dwelling!
On Yarrow's banks let herons feed,
Hares couch, and rabbits burrow,
But we will downward with the Tweed,
Nor turn aside to Yarrow.

From sorrow sorrow yet is born,
Hopes flow like water through a sieve,
But leave not thou thy son forlorn;
Touch me, great Nature, make me live.

As when thy sunlights, a mild heat,
Touch some dun mere that sleepeth still;
As when thy moonlights, dim and sweet,
Touch some gray ruin on the hill.

From some sweet home, the morning train
Brings to the city,
Five days a week, in sun or rain,
Returning like a song's refrain,
A school girl pretty.

A wild flower's unaffected grace
Is dainty miss's;
Yet in her shy, expressive face
The touch of urban arts I trace, —
And artifices.

No one but she and Heaven knows
Of what she 's thinking:
It may be either books or beaux,
Fine scholarship or stylish clothes,
Per cents or prinking.

How happy must the household be,
This morn that kissed her;

From soil somehow the poet's word
and from that word the spreading tree
where swells all fruit, sings every bird,
whose strong trunk is philosophy.
whose branches thrust in legal maze,
whose leaves are myriad windows green
sifting the one to many ways,
tinting the unseen to the seen.
Your teachers list the birds and fruit,
the trunk and branches of the tree;
but they forget about the root,
because the root they cannot see.
Yet have the roots a ray to find
their road between the stones and clay;
like Raftery, the singing blind,

From Santiago, spurning the morrow,
Spain's ships come steaming, big with black sorrow:
Over the ocean, first on our roster,
Runs Richard Wainwright, glad on the Gloucester.
Boast him, and toast him!
 Wainwright! The Gloucester!

Great ships and gaunt ships, steel-clad and sable,
Roll on resplendent, monsters of fable:
Crash all our cannon, quick Maxims rattle.
Red death and ruin rush through the battle;
Red death and dread death
 Ravage and rattle.

Speed on Spain's cruisers, towers of thunder:

From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher,
From silken self, O Captain free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.

From easy choices, weakenings,
Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified,
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O Lamb of God, deliver me.

Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire,

I

From out my deep, wide-bosomed West,
Where unnamed heroes hew the way
For worlds to follow, with stern zest, —
Where gnarled old maples make array,
Deep-scarred from red men gone to rest, —
Where pipes the quail, where squirrels play
Through tossing trees, with nuts for toy,
A boy steps forth, clear-eyed and tall,
A bashful boy, a soulful boy,

If I could keep my innermost Me
Fearless, aloof and free
Of the least breath of love or hate,
And not disconsolate
At the sick load of sorrow laid on men;
If I could keep a sanctuary there
Free even of prayer,
If I could do this, then,
With quiet candor as I grew more wise
I could look even at God with grave forgiving eyes.

Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing
From the immense blue circle of the sea,
And the soft thunder where long waves whiten —
These were the same for Sappho as for me.
Two thousand years — much has gone by forever,
Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men —
But here on the beaches that time passes over
The heart aches now as then.

From Lake Tung-t'ing we travel west
to the Shrine of the Goddess;
here to comfort weary travelers
are women with painted brows.
The mountain town is desolate,
shops close at early hours;
the fortress tower's light still far,
we're late to moor our boat.
The dialect here I do not speak —
I'll hire interpreters;
such strange birds — I don't know their names,
ashamed as a scholar of the Odes .
How rare to find a boatman