English

The city streets coil around me:
thongs of mud bite into my heart,
a dull ember in it yields only clay,
cords of fire lash naked melancholy fields,
they burn Jaikur in the pit of my soul,
they plant in the pit ashes of rancor.

These are streets of which drowsy hearthside legends say:
From them no more than from the shores of death
has any traveler through night returned,
as if there
echo and silence were wings of the Sphinx,
two wings that jut from buried rock through the subsoil.

With Bob and Joanne then, rounding
the cliffs from Wharf Road
to the beach one idle late summer
afternoon, as if time were endless,
sitting down then to rest
as if at home, at water's

edge, the seabirds swooping,
the beach empty, the talk lapping,
inconsequential, nothing brings
consequence, all happens, all this
sweet nothing. The moments flood back,
a blurring tide, and then withdraw

again into the ever
accumulating pool of ebbing
attentions, lost hopes, forgotten so

THE FIRST BIRTH DAY .

The Sun, sweet girl, hath run his year-long race
Through the vast nothing of the eternal sky —
Since the glad hearing of the first faint cry
Announc'd a stranger from the unknown place
Of unborn souls. How blank was then the face,
How uninform'd the weak light-shunning eye,
That wept and saw not. Poor mortality
Begins to mourn before it knows its case,
Prophetic in its ignorance. But soon
The hospitalities of earth engage
The banish'd spirit in its new exile —

Cincirinella had a mule in his stall,
All day long he kept it on the go,
Cart and saddle and bridle and all,
Trot trot Cincirinella. Ho!

He trotted on the mountain, he trotted on the plain,
He'd be trotting still, if he hadn't dropped.
With pennies in his pocket and pennies to gain
Cincirinella never never stopped.

The churchyard leans to the sea with its dead,--
It leans to the sea with its dead so long,
Do they hear, I wonder, the first bird's song,
When the winter's anger is all but fled;
The high, sweet voice of the west wind,
The fall of the warm, soft rain,
When the second month of the year
Puts heart in the earth again?

Do they hear, through the glad April weather,
The green grasses waving above them?
Do they think there are none left to love them,
They have lain for so long there, together?

CHURCH Street wears ever a smile, from having watched bright belles
Coming home with young men, after balls, " at all hours. "
Its villas don't mind; they say, " Go it, young swells,
We've been young, too! " But Ebenezer Street glowers.

Chapel deacons live here, with side whiskers and pompous wives,
Who play hymns on Sundays, and deeply deplore sinful acts.
They're convinced that their neighbors lead scandalous private lives;
" That you and I ought to be shot, " if one knew all the facts. "

His was a chamber in the topmost tower —
A small unsightly cell with grated bars;
And wearily went on each irksome hour
Of dim captivity and moody cares;
Against such visitants he was not strong,
But sat with laden heart and brow of woe;
And every morn he heard the stir and song
Of birds in royal gardens far below,
Telling of bowers and dewy lawns unseen,
Drench'd with the silver steam that night had shed;
Part blossom-white, part exquisitely green,
By little warblers roam'd and tenanted,

" The Church is dead, " said brother Brown;
" It's true, " said Gossip. " It's sure going down. "
" I'm gonna quit, " brother Gad-about 'lowed,
" And go where there is a much bigger crowd. "
Sister Selfish, too, was sure she could see —
" Not a soul in church 'preciates me. "
Said brother Grumble, " I don't see why
The Sunday school's dead and the meeting's dry. "
But good brother Faithful sat in his place;
The sunshine of heaven abeamin' on his face;
The good saint worshiped in prayer and song;

1. Christ's life our code, his cross our creed Our common, glad confession be;
2. Dear Son of God! thy blessed will Our hearts would own, with saints above;
Our deepest wants, our highest aims, Find their fulfillment, Lord in thee.
All life is larger for thy law, All service sweeter for thy love.

3. Thy life our code! in letters clear
We read our duty, day by day,
Thy footsteps tracing eagerly,
Who art the truth, the life, the way.

4. Thy cross our creed! thy boundless love
A ransomed world at last shall laud,

SONNET TO A SONNET .

Rare composition of a poet-knight,
Most chivalrous amongst chivalric men,
Distinguish'd for a polish'd lance and pen
In tuneful contest and in tourney-fight;
Lustrous in scholarship, in honour bright,
Accomplish'd in all graces current then,
Humane as any in historic ken,
Brave, handsome, noble, affable, polite;
Most courteous to that race become of late
So fiercely scornful of all kind advance,
Rude, bitter, coarse, implacable in hate
To Albion, plotting ever her mischance,—