English

I' LL no be had for naething,
I'll no be had for naething,
I tell ye, lads, that's ae thing,
So ye needna follow me.

Oh! the change is most surprising;
Last year I was plain Betty Brown;
Now to my hand they're a' aspiring,
The fair Eliza I am grown!

But I'll no, &c.

Oh! the change is most surprising, —
Nane o' them e'er look'd at me;
Now my charms they're a' admiring,
For my sake they're like to dee!

But I'll no, &c.

The laird, the shirra, and the doctor,

The east is a clear violet mass
Behind the houses high;
The laborers with their kettles pass;
The carts are creaking by.

Carved out against the tender sky,
The convent gables lift;
Half way below the old boughs lie
Heaped in a great white drift.

They tremble in the passionate air;
They part, and clean and sweet
The cherry flakes fall here, fall there;
A handful stirs the street.

The workmen look up as they go;
And one, remembering plain
How white the Irish orchards blow,

Ease is the pray'r of him who, in a whaleboat
Crossing Lake Champlain, by a storm's o'ertaken;
Not struck his blanket, not a friendly island
Near to receive him.

Ease is the wish too of the sly Canadian;
Ease the delight of bloody Caghnawagas;
Ease, Richard, ease, not to be bought with wampum,
Nor paper money.

Not colonel's pay, nor yet a dapper sergeant,
Orderly waiting with recovered halberd,
Can chase the crowd of troubles still surrounding
Laced regimentals.

Earth , you have had great lovers in your hour,
And little lovers, fearful and struck dumb;
Those who have seen you whole, as from a tower,
And others kneeling where the grass-blades come.
Age after spinning age and day by day,
They toss the dawn between them, as a ball,
Ride Beauty plunging to the whip of May,
And string the stars to light their carnival.
They will not heed the shouting, singing flood
Of lovers gone before them. Echoed cries,
Too like their own may sound, but their wild blood

Earth , with its dark and dreadful ills,
— Recedes, and fades away;
Lift up your heads, ye heavenly hills;
— Ye gates of death, give way!

My soul is full of whispered song,
— My blindness is my sight;
The shadows that I feared so long
— Are all alive with light.

The while my pulses faintly beat,
— My faith doth so abound,
I feel grow firm beneath my feet
— The green immortal ground.

That faith to me a courage gives
— Low as the grave, to go:
I know that my Redeemer lives:

The earth seems a desolate mother, —
Betrayed like the princess of old,
The ermine stripped from her shoulders,
And her bosom all naked and cold.

But a joy looks out from her sadness,
For she feels with a glad unrest
The throb of the unborn summer
Under her bare, brown breast.

" Earth puts her colours by, "
And veils her in one whispering cloak of shadow;
Green goes from the meadow,
Red leaves and flowers and shining pools are shrouded;
A few stars sail upon a windy sky,
And the moon is clouded.

The delicate music, traced
In and out of the soft lights and the laughter,
Is hushed, round ledge and rafter
The last faint echoes into silence creeping;
The harp is mute, the violins encased,
And the singers sleeping:

So, now my songs are done,

The old man babbles on! Ye gods, I swear
My soul is sick of these philosophers!
In truth I marvel that young blood should care
To hear such vapid stuff; yet no one stirs.

Who's for a breath of unpolluted air?
See yonder brown-eyed nursling of the Muse,—
I'll pluck his robe and ask him; if he choose,
We two can steal away and none be ware.

What joy to find a woodland rill and wade
Knee-deep through pebbly shallows; then to lie
With glistening limbs along the open glade
And let the soft-lipped sunbeams kiss them dry;

Earth has borne a little son,
He is a very little one,
He wears a bib all frilled with green
Around his neck to keep him clean.
Though before another Spring
A thousand children Earth may bring
Forth to bud and blossoming —
Lily daughters, cool and slender,
Roses, passionate and tender,
Tulip sons as brave as swords,
Hollyhocks, like laughing lords,
Yet she'll never love them quite
As much as she loves Aconite:
Aconite, the first of all,
Who is so very, very small,
Who is so golden-haired and good,

The early spring's sweet blush,
Like a maiden's beauteous flush,
Mounts the cheek of earth and sky,
With radiance soft and shy.
She comes like a virgin queen,
From her couch of emerald green,
Enrobed in garments bright,
With sunny locks of light
And gladness in her smile,
Beguiling care the while,
With music from the thrush,
And the brook's low warbling rush.
She stoops and whispers low,
To the violets 'neath the snow,
On bended knee she peeps,
In the home where the clover sleeps;