1

Brushes and paints are all I have
To speak the music in my soul —
While silently there laughs at me
A copper jar beside a pale green bowl.

2

How strange that grass should sing —
Grass is so still a thing. . . .
And strange the swift surprise of snow
So soft it falls and slow.

B RUADAR and Smith and Glinn,
Amen, dear God, I pray,
May they lie low in waves of woe,
And tortures slow each day!
Amen!

Bruadar and Smith and Glinn
Helpless and cold, I pray,
Amen! I pray, O King,
To see them pine away.
Amen!

Bruadar and Smith and Glinn
May flails of sorrow flay!
Cause for lamenting, snares and cares
Be theirs by night and day!
Amen!

Blindness come down on Smith,
Palsy on Bruadar come,
Amen, O King of Brightness! Smite
Glinn in his members numb,
Amen!

B ROWN'S for Lalage, Jones for Lelia,
—Robinson's bosom for Beatrice glows,
Smith is a Hamlet before Ophelia.
—The glamor stays if the reason goes!
—Every lover the years disclose
Is of a beautiful name made free.
—One befriends, and all others are foes.
Anna's the name of names for me.

Sentiment hallows the vowels of Delia;
—Sweet simplicity breathes from Rose;
Courtly memories glitter in Celia;
—Rosalind savors of quips and hose,
—Araminta of wits and beaux,
Prue of puddings, and Coralie
—All of sawdust and spangled shows;

Browning, old fellow,
Your leaves grow yellow,
Beginning to mellow
As seasons pass.
Your cover is wrinkled,
And stained and sprinkled,
And warped and crinkled
From sleep on the grass.

Is it a wine stain,
Or only a pine stain,
That makes such a fine stain
On your dull blue,—
Got as we numbered
The clouds that lumbered
Southward and slumbered
When day was through?

What is the dear mark
There like an earmark,
Only a tear mark
A woman let fall?—
As bending over
She bade me discover,

Browning makes the verses:
Your servant the critique.
Browning wouldn't sing at all:
I fancy I could speak.
Although the book was clever
(To give the Deil his due)
I wasn't pleased with Browning
Nor he with my review.

A brown, sad-coloured hillside, where the soil
Fresh from the frequent harrow, deep and fine,
Lies bare; no break in the remote sky-line,
Save where a flock of pigeons streams aloft,
Startled from feed in some low-lying croft,
Or far-off spires with yellow of sunset shine;
And here the Sower, unwittingly divine,
Exerts the silent forethought of his toil.
Alone he treads the glebe, his measured stride
Dumb in the yielding soil; and though small joy
Dwell in his heavy face, as spreads the blind
Pale grain from his dispensing palm aside,

The year was tan-wo , it was the fourth month, summer's first,
 The thirty-seventh day of the cycle, at sunset, when an owl alighted in my house.
 On the corner of my seat it perched, completely at ease.
 I marveled at the reason for this uncanny visitation
 And opened a book to discover the omen. The oracle yielded the maxim:
 “When a wild bird enters a house, the master is about to leave.”
 I should have liked to ask the owl: Where am I to go?
 If lucky, let me know; if bad, tell me the worst.
 Be it swift or slow, tell me when it is to be.

Brown is my Love, but graceful;
And each renowned whiteness
Matched with thy lovely brown loseth its brightness.

Fair is my Love, but scornful:
Yet I have seen despised
Dainty white lilies, and sad flowers well prized.

King Hsiang of Ch'u was taking his ease in the Palace of the Orchid Terrace, with his courtiers Sung Yü and Ching Ch'a attending him, when a sudden gust of wind came sweeping in. The king, opening wide the collar of his robe and facing into it, said, " How delightful this wind is! And I and the common people may share it together, may we not? "
But Sung Yü replied, " This wind is for Your Majesty alone. How could the common people have a share in it? "

Brown earth-line meets gray heaven,
And all the land looks sad;
But Love's the little leaven
That works the whole world glad.
Sigh, bitter wind; lower, frore clouds of gray:
My Love and I are living now in May!