[1887–1918]

Dead dancer, how is this?—the laurel here
Upon your bier?
The brazen wings, the sword—and the shrill tone
Of bugles blown?

Why do you wear, light-footed one—O proud!—
The flag for shroud?
Where have you danced? from what high-spherèd dome
Have you come home?

Bravo!—you trod the measure gallantly,
Swiftly flew free!
Goodbye—perhaps your flight has just begun
Under the sun.

De man dat wahs de slickest tile
Doan draw de bigges' check;
De riches' lookin' kin' ob sile
Doan yiel' de bigges' peck.

De hoss dat 's highes' in de pool
Doan always win de race,
Kase sometimes he 's a little off,
An' sometimes held fo' place.

De bulldog wid de orn'ry jaw
Ain' half so bad to meet
As dat dar yaller mungril cur
Dat 's layin for yo' meat.

De mooley cow dat hists her leg
An' makes de milkmaid scream,
Am jes' de bossie cow dat gives
De riches' kin' ob cream.

Dazzled thus with height of place,
Whilst our hopes our wits beguile,
No man marks the narrow space
'Twixt a prison and a smile.

Then, since Fortune's favours fade,
You that in her arms do sleep,
Learn to swim, and not to wade,
For the hearts of Kings are deep.

But, if Greatness be so blind
As to trust in towers of air,
Let it be with Goodness lined,
That at least the fall be fair.

Then, though darkened, you shall say,
When friends fail, and Princes frown,
Virtue is the roughest way,
But proves at night a bed of down.

The days shorten, the south blows wide for showers now,
The south wind shouts to the rivers,
The rivers open their mouths and the salt salmon
Race up into the freshet.
In Christmas month against the smoulder and menace
Of a long angry sundown,
Red ash of the dark solstice, you see the anglers,
Pitiful, cruel, primeval,
Like the priests of the people that built Stonehenge,
Dark silent forms, performing
Remote solemnities in the red shallows
Of the river's mouth at the year's turn,
Drawing landward their live bullion, the bloody mouths

The days of yore — both good and ill
Was happy days for Braggin' Bill.
" In former times, " said Bill, " a man
Jest had to be more subtile than
The sissified and sickly jays
Of these plumb tame, downtrodden days.
In sixty-nine, " says he, " when I
Was young, adventuresome and spry
A feller had to be possess't
Of marv'lous fortytude out West.

" In sixty-nine or there about
When I was but a simple lout
I ran nine hundred steers — alone —
To Denver up from San Antone.
'Twas in the winter that I went

The days of Bute and Grafton's fame,
Of Chatham's waning prime,
FirsTheard your sounding gong proclaim
Its chronicle of Time;
Old days when Dodd confessed his guilt,
When Goldsmith drave his quill,
And genial gossip Horace built
His house on Strawberry Hill.

Now with a grave unmeaning face
You still repeat the tale,
High-towering in your somber case,
Designed by Chippendale;
Without regret for what is gone,
You bid old customs change,
As year by year you travel on
To scenes and voices strange.

The day's grown old, the fainting sun
Has but a little way to run,
And yet his steeds, with all his skill,
Scarce lug the chariot down the hill.

With labour spent, and thirst opprest,
While they strain hard to gain the West,
From fetlocks hot drops melted light,
Which turns to meteors in the night.

The shadows now so long do grow,
That brambles like tall cedars show,
Mole-hills seem mountains, and the ant
Appears a monstrous elephant.

A very little, little flock
Shades thrice the ground that it would stock;

The days drift by—as ships drift out to sea:
Morning, high noon, twilight's tranquility.

And then—the peace the honeyed evening brings
With the large moon and old rememberings.

Old memories, old raptures, old desires,
Old joys return, and Youth's immortal fires;

Old loves that still around the spirit lie
And whisper of long Summer days gone by.

O rapture of the world that crowds to-night
About my soul, and brings back lost delight,

Bid me farewell when the last stars awake,
Or else my wounded heart will break, will break!

Daybreak upon the hills!
Slowly, behind the midnight murk and trail
Of the long storm, light brightens, pure and pale,
And the horizon fills.

Not bearing swift release, —
Not with quick feet of triumph, but with tread
August and solemn, following her dead,
Cometh, at last, our Peace.

Over thick graves grown green,
Over pale bones that graveless lie and bleach,
Over torn human hearts her path doth reach,
And Heaven's dear pity lean.

O angel sweet and grand!
White-footed, from beside the throne of God,

(English version by Louis Untermeyer)

1

The day that my dear came to us,
The flow'rs were a-borning too;
The day that my dear came to us,
The nightingales trilled their songs.

Refrain:
Sunrise is coming, is coming,
The sun has seen us, my dear,
Arise, my little friend,
Look, day-light is here.

2

If I were a yellow sunray
I'd sparkle about your head
And flicker a bright " Good Morning "