English

The color gladdens all your heart;
— You call iTheaven, dear, but I —
Now Hope and I are far apart —
— Call it the sky.

I know that Nature's tears have wet
— The world with sympathy; but you,
Who know not any sorrow yet,
— Call it the dew.

Collie puppies in a dooryard,
Wheeling along lopsided,
So hard to manage those hind legs,
Standing, blue eyes on nothing,
Noses twitching,
Stubby tails in the air,
Trying to remember what they are thinking about:

Fat puppies that forget everything,
Even the terrible
White teeth their mother yaps at them
When she eats her supper:

Fat puppies full of wonder
At round holes where spiders live,
At the wide wings of a yellow butterfly,
And lifting shrill voices of wonder

Wrong! Is it wrong? Well, may be:
But I'm going, boys, all the same.
Do they think me a Burgher's baby,
To be scared by a scolding name?
They may argue, and prate, and order;
Go, tell them to save their breath:
Then, over the Transvaal border,
And gallop for life or death!

Let lawyers and statesmen addle
Their pates over points of law;
If sound be our sword, and saddle,
And gun-gear, who cares one straw?
When men of our own blood pray us
To ride to their kinsfolk's aid,

Cold winter's in the wood,
I saw him pass
Crinkling up fallen leaves
Along the grass.

Bleak winter's in the wood,
The birds have flown
Leaving the naked trees
Shivering alone.

King Winter's in the wood,
I saw him go
Crowned with a coronet
Of crystal snow.

The cold winds swept the mountain's height,
And pathless was the dreary wild,
And 'mid the cheerless hours of night,
A mother wandered with her child;
As through the drifting snows she pressed
The babe was sleeping on her breast.

And colder still the wind did blow,
And darker hours of night came on,
And deeper grew the drifting snow;
Her limbs were chilled, her strength was gone:
“O God!” she cried, in accents wild,
“If I must perish, save my child!”

She stripped her mantle from her breast

Cold, sharp lamentation
In the cold bitter winds
Ever blowing across the sky;
Oh, there was loneliness with me!

The loud sounding of the waves
Beating against the shore,
Their vast, rough, heavy outcry,
Oh, there was loneliness with me!

The light sea-gulls in the air,
Crying sharply through the harbours,
The cries and screams of the birds
With my own heart! Oh! that was loneliness.

The voice of the winds and the tide,
And the long battle of the mighty war;

The cold limbs of the air
Brush by me on the hill,
Climb to the utmost crag,
Leap out, then all is still.

Ah, but what high intent
In the cold will of wind;
What sceptre would it grasp
To leave these dreams behind!

Trail of celestial things:
White centaurs, winged in flight,
Through the fired heart sweep on,
A hurricane of light.

I have no plumes for air:
Earth hugs to it my bones.
Leave me, O sky-born powers,
Brother to grass and stones.

FROM UHLAND .

The cold grey hills they bind me around,
The darksome valleys lie sleeping below,
But the winds, as they pass o'er all this ground,
Bring me never a sound of woe.

Oh! for all I have suffered and striven,
Care has embittered my cup and my feast;
BuThere is the night and the dark blue heaven,
And my soul shall be at rest.

O golden legends writ in the skies!

Cold, cold the year draws to its end,
The crickets and grasshoppers make a doleful chirping.
The chill wind increases its violence.
My wandering love has no coat to cover him.
He gave his embroidered furs to the Lady of Lo,
But from me his bedfellow he is quite estranged.
Sleeping alone in the depth of the long night
In a dream I thought I saw the light of his face.
My dear one thought of our old joys together,
He came in his chariot and gave me the front reins.
I wanted so to prolong our play and laughter,

" Oh! I am sick of what I am. Of ali
Which I in life can ever hope to be.
Angels of light be pitiful to me. "

The cold chain of life presseth heavily on me tonight.
The thundering pace of thought is curbed, and, like a fiery steed, dasheth against the gloomy walls of my prisoned soul.
Oh! how long will my poor thoughts lament their narrow faculty? When will the rein be loosed from my impatient soul?