English

The gallant laird of Lamington
Cam frae the North Countree
To court a gallant gay lady,
And wi presents entered he.

He neither stood for gould nor gear —
For she was a well-fared may —
And whan he got her friends' consent
He set the wedding-day.

She 's sent unto her first fere love,
Gin he would come to see,
And he has sent word back again

A white well
In a black cave;
A bright shell
In a dark wave.

A white rose
Black brambles hood;
Smooth bright snows
In a dark wood.

A flung white glove
In a dark fight;
A white dove
On a wild black night.

A white door
In a dark lane;
A bright core
To bitter black pain.

A white hand
Waved from dark walls;
In a burnt black land
Bright waterfalls.

A bright spark
Where black ashes are;
In the smothering dark
One white star.

Gabriel, fram Hevene King
Sent to the maide swete,
Broughte hire blisful tiding,
And faire he gan hire grete:
"Heil! be thu, full of grace aright,
For Godes sone, this Hevene light,
For mannes loven
Wile man becomen,
And taken
Fleas of the maiden bright,
Manken fre for to maken
Of senne and Devles might.'

Mildeliche him gan andsweren
The milde maiden thanne:
"Whiche wise sold ich beren
Child withuten manne?'
Th'angle seide, "Ne dred thee nought!
Thurw th'Holy Gast shall ben iwrought

The furnace tolls the knell of falling steam,
The coal supply is virtually done,
And at this price, indeed it does not seem
As though we could afford another ton.

Now fades the glossy, cherished anthracite;
The radiators lose their temperature:
How ill avail, on such a frosty night,
The " short and simple flannels of the poor. "

Though in the icebox, fresh and newly laid,
The rude forefathers of the omelet sleep,
No eggs for breakfast till the bill is paid:
We cannot cook again till coal is cheap.

Funny the way
Different cars start.
Some with a chunk and a jerk,
Some with a cough and a puff of smoke
Out of the back,
Some with only a little click — with hardly any noise.

Funny the way
Different cars run.
Some rattle and bang,
Some whirrr,
Some knock and knock.
Some purr
And hummmmm
Smoothly on with hardly any noise.

Funny, how Felicia Ropps
Always handles things in shops!
Always pinching, always poking,
Always feeling, always stroking
Things she has no right to touch!
Goops like that annoy me much!

What solace would those books afford,
In gold and vellum cover,
Could men but say them word for word
Who never turn them over!

Books that must know themselves by heart
As by endowment vital,
Could they their truths to us impart
Not stopping with the title!

Line after line their wisdom flows,
Page after page repeating;
Yet never on our ears bestows
A single sound of greeting.

As thus they lie upon the shelves,
Such wisdom in their pages,
Do they rehearse it to themselves,

Full summer and at noon; from a waste bed
Convolvulus, musk-mallow, poppies spread
The triumph of the sunshine overhead.

Blue on refulgent ash-trees lies the heat;
It tingles on the hedge-rows; the young wheat
Sleeps, warm in golden verdure, at my feet.

The pale, sweet grasses of the hayfield blink;
The heath-moors, as the bees of honey drink,
Suck the deep bosom of the day. To think

Of all that beauty by the light defined
None shares my vision! Sharply on my mind
Presses the sorrow: fern and flower are blind.

Full often as I rove by path or stile,
To watch the harvest ripening in the vale,
Slowly and sweetly, like a growing smile—
A smile that ends in laughter—the quick gale
Upon the breadths of gold-green wheat descends;
While still the swallow, with unbaffled grace,
About his viewless quarry dips and bends—
And all the fine excitement of the chase
Lies in the hunter's beauty: In the eclipse
Of that brief shadow, how the barley's beard
Tilts at the passing gloom, and wild-rose dips
Among the white-tops in the ditches rear'd:

Full many sing to me and thee
Their riches gather'd by the sea;
But I will sing, for I'm footsore,
The burthen of the barren shore.

The hue of love how lively shown
In this sole found cerulean stone
By twenty leagues of ocean roar.
O, burthen of the barren shore!

And these few crystal fragments bright,
As clear as truth, as strong as right,
I found in footing twenty more.
O, burthen of the barren shore!

And how far did I go for this
Small, precious piece of ambergris?