English

Although it is not plainly visible to the eye
That autumn has come,
I am alarmed
By the noise of the wind!

Two figures fill this temple to my sight,
Who e'er shall speak, their forms behind him stand;
One has the beauty of our Northern blood,
And wields Jove's thunder in his lifted hand.

The other wears the solemn hue of night
Drawn darker in the blazonry of pain,
Blotting the gaslight's mimic day, he slings
A dangerous weapon too, a broken chain.

Oh! what a thing it was to sit and hear
Our Sumner pour the torrent of his soul;
The broken thread and parcel of the crowd
Knit to one web—one passion-colored whole.

I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fall in the Battle of Life,
The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife;
Not the jubilant song of the victors, for whom the resounding acclaim
Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wear the chaplet of fame,
But the hymn of the low and the humble, the weary, the broken in heart,
Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate part;
Whose youth bore no flower in its branches, whose hopes burned in ashes away,

The autumn leaves
Are too heavy with color.
The slender trees
On the Vulcan Road
Are dressed in scarlet and gold
Like young courtesans
Waiting for their lovers.
But soon
The winter winds
Will strip their bodies bare
And then
The sharp, sleet-stung
Caresses of the cold
Will be their only

In the dregs of the year, all steam and rain,
In the timid time of the heart again,
When indecision is bold and thorough,
And action dreams of a dawn in vain,

I saw high up over Bloxham vale
The ploughshare tilt to the next long trail,
And, spying a larder in every furrow,
The wagtails crowd like a dancing hail!

A second wonder there on the hill:
Beneath the hedge, I saw with a thrill
The budding primroses laugh good-morrow
From a deep cradle rocked by a rill!

Wagtail smart in his belted blue,

Hail! muse of my Lancastria fair;
No more may lie the bleeding flowers;
Born but to breathe one native air,
They intertwine in their own bowers.
Red rose and white, commingling well,
Another beauty shall be born,
And all shall praise and love to tell
They have escaped the wounding thorn.
No more in England's genial vales
Vex'd feud or civil broil prevails;
Then all unite, as if in one--
Let all be free beneath the sun!

In by-gone years the tyrants reigned,
And with a cruel hand held sway;

Tired of the life I lead,
Tired of the blues I breathe,
Tired counting things I need,
Gonna cut out wine, and that's the truth,
Get a brand-new guy while I got my youth.
Tired of the clothes I wear,
Tired of the patches bare,
Tired of the crows I scare,
Gonna truck downtown and spend my moo,
Get some short-vamped shoes and a new guy, too.
A-scrubbin' and a-cleanin' sure leaves my glamour with a scar,
A-mendin' and a-moppin',
A-starchin' and a-shoppin'
Don't make me look like no Hedy Lamarr.

O Inverey came down Dee side, whistling and playing;
He 's landed at Braikly's yates at the day dawing.

Says, Baron of Braikly, are ye within?
There 's sharp swords at the yate will gar your blood spin.

The lady raise up, to the window she went;
She heard her kye lowing oer hill and oer bent.

‘O rise up, John,’ she says, ‘turn back your kye;
They 're oer the hills rinning, they 're skipping away.’

‘Come to your bed, Peggie, and let the kye rin,
For were I to gang out, I would never get in.’

Where the blessèd winter sunshine close beside my pallet falls,
While I watch its golden glory steal across the white-washed walls,
While I hear amid the silence Christmas chime and Christmas shout,—
I am lying,
Faint and dying,
Waiting to be mustered out.

'T is the time, I well remember, when I hoped once more to stand
Safe within the charmèd circle of the joyous household band,
Grim, perhaps, with warlike scarring; proud, perhaps, of warlike fame;—
Vain my dreaming,—
Yet in seeming
I can think it just the same.

Who seeks to show another's fault will find
In self a greater shown,
But he that is to faults of others blind,
But covers thus his own.