English

What will it please you, my darling, hereafter to be?
Fame upon land will you look for, or glory by sea?
Gallant your life will be always, and all of it free.

Free as the wind when the heart of the twilight is stirred
Eastward, and sounds from the springs of the sunrise are heard:
Free—and we know not another as infinite word.

Darkness or twilight or sunlight may compass us round,
Hate may arise up against us, or hope may confound;
Love may forsake us; yet may not the spirit be bound.

Her Cheek's a lily newly blown,
Her brow like marble white,
And he who has not Demo known
Has never known delight.
O pale-faced maid, dost thou still yearn
For Zion far away?
E'en in that temple love's fires burn
On great Jehovah's day.

I know you now: 'tis vain to try
And cozen me with tearful eye.
When round your waist my arms are thrown
It's me you love and me alone.
But when another has you, then
You vow that he's your king of men.

A golden robe, yet will she wear
Only a rose in her golden hair.

I love the narrow lane's dark bows,
When summer glows or winter blows;
Or when the hedge-born primrose hides
Its head upon the dry banksides,
By ribby-rinded maple shoots,
Or round the dark-stemm'd hazel's roots;
Where weather-beaten ivy winds
Unwith'ring o'er the elms' brown rinds,
And where the ashes white bough whips
The whistling air with coal-black tips;
And where the grassy ground, beside
The gravel-washing brook, lies wide,
And leaping lambs, with shrill-toned throats,
Bleat loudly in their first white coats,

We owe, alas! to woman's sin
The woes with which we grapple;—
To think that all our plagues came in
For one poor stolen apple!
And still we love the darling thief
Whose rosy fingers stole it;—
Her weakness brought the world to grief,
Her smiles alone console it!
—I take the “stolen” fruit you leave,—
(Forgive me, Maid and Madam,)
It makes me dream that you are Eve,
And wish that I were Adam!

O her hair is as dark as the midnight wave,
And her eye is like kindling fire,
And her voice is sweet as the spirit's voice
That chords with the seraph's lyre.

But her nails are as sharp as a toasting fork,
And her arms as strong as a bear's;
She pulled my hair, and she gouged my eye,
And she kicked me down the stairs.

I've got me an eye that's made of—glass,
And I've got me a wig that's new,—
The wig is frizzled in cork screw curls,
And the eye is a clouded blue.

Yet wert thou false—in vain the smiles
That played in light around thee
A seraph in an icy chain
That sparkled while it bound thee

I can forget thee—all hath fled
Save one half buried gleam
Of what thou wast—and what thou art
Shall be a nameless dream—

Thou pirate nested over Alde!
Stern wrecker of the Established Faith!
From whom the parson shrinks appalled;
In whom the mariner sees his wraith;
Attracts thee in the gassy glare
Of evening some fishmonger's slab?
And still dost mix for supper fare,
The shelly with poetic Crabbe?
Or else, while sinks the enlarging star,
Of night libidinous the herald,
Thou drink'st of ebrious Omar
From the gold goblet named FitzGerald?
Then into Nature's entrails peer'st,
Not finding there the Christian God;

Here 's, a bottle and an honest friend!
What wad ye wish for mair, man?
Wha kens, before his life may end,
What his share may be of care, man.

Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man:—
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not ay when sought, man.