‘
While fast the dew fa's o'er the lea?
Say, lassie, hae ye tint your gate,
That hangs sic pearls at either e'e?’

‘Ah! no—my path I ken fu' weel,
For oft it feels my lanely feet;
At ilka gloamin hour I steal
To ane dear spot to sigh an' greet.

‘'T is there I haste these tears to drap
Among the tall, saft grass that sweeps,
Alang the clods o' earth's hard lap,
Where, pale an' cauld, my Jemmie sleeps.

‘The lee-lang day I wear a smile,
To hide the marks o' dool an' care;
But wish this achin heart, the while,

I have been a seeker
Seeking a flaming star,
And the flame white star
Has burned my hands
Even from afar.

Walking in a dream-dead world
Circled by iron bars,
I sought a singing star's
Wild beauty.
Now behold my scars.

Two were at the oars and two,
Trailing hands, lolled in the bow
When the boat stole into sight
Round Emmanuel Head just now.

The sky was one fierce flame of sun,
The sea, a burnished glassy lake:
No creak or plash of oars was there:
The cleaving keel left no white wake.

I blinked a moment, my hot eyes
Bedazzled by the blinding light:
And when I looked about again
The silent boat had sunk from sight.

Then fearfully my heart recalled
How those most dear of all to me—
The four in that phantasmal boat—
Yet sojourned by another sea.

How nice a shape that Leg,
As Pencil's art can take;
So Streight the growth, how fine the Man,
Who did that Fabric make?

My God, I know t'was thou
That fashion'd it of Clay;
And at thy pleasure shall it fall,
And moulder all away.

Is he a Man of War,
And Honor in the Field?
Ye Maidens, love your honor more,
And never to him yield.

Does he his Sovereign love,
His Country's good at Heart?
And yet to injure harmless Maids,
How cowardly a part!

He cannot love the King of Kings,
That thus his Law will break;

The ocean beats its noontide harmonies
Upon the sunlit lines of cragged coast,
And a wild rhythm pulses through my brain
With pauses and responsive melodies;
And sky and ocean, air and day and night
Topple and reel upon my burning blood,
Run to and fro, whirl round and round and round,
Till, lo! the cosmic madness breathes a strain
Of perfect music through the universe.
I hear it with my ears, eyes, hands and feet,
I drink it with my breath, my skin sucks in
At every fevered pore fine threads of sound,
Which plunge vibrations of the wind-swept harp

Why do I live among the green mountains?
I laugh and answer not, my soul is serene:
It dwells in another heaven and earth belonging to no man.
The peach trees are in flower, and the water flows on. . . .

When they did greet me Father, sudden Awe
Weigh'd down my spirit! I retired and knelt
Seeking the throne of grace, but inly felt
No heavenly visitation upwards draw
My feeble mind, nor cheering ray impart.
Ah me! before the Eternal Sire I brought
Th' unquiet silence of confuséd Thought
And shapeless feelings: my o'erwhelmed Heart
Trembled: & vacant tears stream'd down my face.
And now once more, O Lord! to thee I bend,
Lover of souls! and groan for future grace,
That, ere my Babe youth's perilous maze have trod,
Thy overshadowing Spirit may descend

O, WHEN I hear at sea
The water on our lee,
I fancy that I hear the wind
That combs my hemlock tree:

But when beneath that tree
I listen eagerly,
I seem to hear the rushing wave
I heard far out at sea.

Wind of the wide world's mantled thought,
About the vague vast blowing;
This truth my wayward heart hath caught,
That being hath more doors than thought,
And life is more than knowing.

That creeds of darkness or of mind
Are but the scaly bark
That slips from off the centuried rind,
While inward works the impulse blind,
Amid the crannied dark.

And deeper than the builded theme
Of priest or book or seer,
There lies that life, that subtle dream
That rules the sunny warmth and gleam
That wakes the upward year.

Weeping Melpomene assist my lays,
Whilst I unhappy Tysey mourn and praise!
Denied thy aid, what bard presumes to tell
How loved he lived, or how lamented fell!
Come then, thou mournful Sister of the Nine,
Come, aid this plaintive, elegiac strain!
So shall my verse to future times deplore
The beauteous, breathless Tysey, now no more.

Ye little happy brutes on whom the fair
Bestow their morning and their evening care;
That rob the injured lover of his bliss,
And lick those lips he scarce presumes to kiss;
Whose shaggy limbs too often do supply