Broad bars of sunset-slanted gold
Are laid along the field, and here
The silence sings, as if some old
Refrain, that once rang long and clear,
Came softly, stealing to the ear
Without the aid of sound. The rill
Is voiceless, and the grass is sere,
But beauty's soul abideth still.

Trance-like, the mellow air doth hold
The sorrow of the passing year;
The heart of Nature groweth cold,

The broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.

Flesh and blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.

The hippo's feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church needs never stir
To gather in its dividends.

The 'potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.

Small as he is he can nimbly dance
From fold of collar to waist of pants.
The prick of a lance
Is this creature's bite,
And he can elude the keenest sight.
How can one capture a creature who
With a somersault can vanish from view?!

Broad and far-reaching, the level plain,
Hurrying south to Cangwu and the Sea of Zhang,
Racing north to Purple Barriers, the Wild Goose Gate,
Its barge canal like a tow rope to haul it about,
Its Kunlun of hills to serve as an axle,
A fastness of double rivers, of many-fold passes,
A corridor where four roads meet, where five pass through
Long ago, at the time of its greatest prospering,
Carriages clashed axle heads,
Men jostled shoulders,
House rows and alley gates crowded the earth,
Songs and piping shrilled to the sky

Britons grown big with pride
And wanton case,
And tyranny beside,
They sought to please
Their craving appetite,
They strove with all their might.
They vow'd to rise and fight,
To make us bow.

The plan they laid was deep
Even like hell;
With sympathy I weep,
While here I tell
Of that base murderous brood,
Void of the fear of God,
Who came to spill our blood
In our own land.

They bid their armies sail
Though billows roar,
And take the first fair gale
For Boston's shore;
They cross'd the Atlantic sea
A long and watery way,

Wind disturbing the eave-chimes again.
Cloth at the window rustles with rain.
That empty pillow,
Cold counterpane
All tangled up with me,
I curse with fine particularity.
My emotions are confused and dim
But the darker thoughts are reserved for him!
Oh, wait until he comes back here,
Then won't I pick a fight!
And scratch his face!
And twist his ear!
" And where did you sleep all last night! "

Brissit brawnis and broken banis,
Strife, discord, and waistis wanis,
Crookit in eild, syne halt withal--
Thir are the bewteis of the fute-ball.

Quinetiam Gallum noctem explaudentibus alis
Auroram clara consuetum voce vocare . L UCRET .

Brisk chaunticleer his mattins had begun,
  And broke the silence of the night,
 And thrice he call'd aloud the tardy sun,
  And thrice he hail'd the dawn's ambiguous light;
Back to their graves the fear-begotten phantoms run.
 Strong Labour got up.—With his pipe to his mouth,
  He stoutly strode over the dale,
 He lent new perfumes to the breath of the south,
  On his back hung his wallet and flail.
Behind him came Health from her cottage of thatch,

I've plucked every flower that grows over the wall,
And gathered every willow overhanging the road;
The tenderest buds were the flowers I picked,
And the willows I gathered, of the supplest green fronds;
A wastrel, gay and dashing,
Trusting to my willow gathering, flower plucking hand,
I kept at it till the flowers fell and the willows withered;
Half my life I've been willow gathering and flower plucking
And for a whole generation slept with flowers and lain among the willows.

Bring your shears and clip him well,
His forked claws and his whipping tail,
Cut him out of his wicked shell
And leave him as clean as a flower-bell;
For he was disposed in a diagram
More intricate than the whited clam,
More scaly than the wooly lamb
And almost as evil as I am.