English

The torrent of the homeless people poured
From the doomed city which had been their home;
Like a tormented sea the tumult roared,
Sad human waves that rolled into the gloom.
Mothers their babes, and sons their fathers bore,
And women found their travail-hour too soon,
And frail and aged fell to rise no more,
And some went crazed beneath the October moon.

Hail, and thrice hail, thou glorious War-Lord!
Take thou the glory of the flaming town,
Man, woman, child, of the despairing horde,

Not with the thoughts of others do I seek
To wake your interest and hold it fast;
Not with a fancy from the buried past
Some honeyed fragment of the ancient Greek,
Have I essayed in halting form to speak,
But I have all such cunning outward cast
And trusted to the Saxon words at last
To light your eyes—put color in your cheek.

The simplest speech is truest; when I say
“I love you!” in those three words I have said
All that I know, or compass, or can feel.
Let those who will, adopt the tortuous way

When Dutchy plays th' mouth harp,
All th' fellers gather 'round,
An' help on with th' music,
By a-stompin' on th' ground;
An' th' cook he cuts a shuffle,
An' the night hawk pats his hand,
When Dutchy plays th' mouth harp,
In a way to beat th' band.

When Dutchy plays th' mouth harp,
An' we've cached our chuck away,
An' a-feelin' mighty foxy
An' a feelin' mighty gay,
There's nothin' we like better
Than to lend a pattin' hand,
When Dutchy plays th' mouth harp,
In a way to beat th' band.

For a Little Brown Dog, who “sees” me down
The hill to the car when I go to town,
And carries my bag with an air of pride,
As he trots sedately by my side,
And waits to see that I'm on all right,
And watches the car till it's out of sight—
I thank thee.

For the way he tears down the hill to meet
That car at night on his mad little feet—
The car that will bring me, he knows, from town—
And the joyous greeting, as I step down,
A greeting the passengers hear, and see,
Every one of them envying me,
I thank thee.

Perhaps I owe to my temerity
Some lost advantages of little force;
At life's outgoing they will quit my corse,
I shall have seen what I desired to see,
Eye-single, not with Ishmael's remorse,
But by the beam of nature given me.
Some question Shakespere for his way apart,
Because invited little by the great;
He kept his pedigree, a country heart,
And laureated was to illustrate.
Than imitation is no meaner fate,
To be respectable is not to rise;
There is a strength that does not borrow state,

O what a drowzie lump of flesh is man!
Whose life being no longer then a span,
Great part of that short span is past away
In sleep, so that 'tis hard for us to say,
Whether we live or no: for whiles that we
Repose our selves, dead to our selves we be,
Without all motion and intelligence,
Till this shril larum quicken our dul sense,
And make us living souls to th' day arise,
Like Adam when he opened first his eyes.
Yet this sleep's short and sweet, if we compare
It to that other wherein many are

The hollow sea-shell which for years hath stood
On dusty shelves, when held against the ear
Proclaims its stormy parent; and we hear
The faint far murmur of the breaking flood.

We hear the sea. The sea? It is the blood
In our own veins, impetuous and near,
And pulses keeping pace with hope and fear
And with our feelings' every shifting mood.

Lo, in my heart I hear, as in a shell,
The murmur of a world beyond the grave,
Distinct, distinct, though faint and far it be.
Thou fool; this echo is a cheat as well,—

Do ye know Oughterard with the stream running through it;
The bridge that falls down on one side like a hill;
The trees and the pleasant, respectable houses;
The white waterfall and the old ruinèd mill?

God be with the night when I drank there wid Sweeney
Till he brought the “special” from under the floor
And dawn came in square through the bar-parlour window;
And “Jaze us!” Sez Sweeney “It's twenty past four!”

In old Oughterard I could get on quite nicely,
For there I know decent, remarkable men:

Youth hath many charms,—
—Hath many joys, and much delight;
Even its doubts, and vague alarms,
—By contrast make it bright:
And yet—and yet—forsooth,
—I love Age as well as Youth!

Well, since I love them both,
—The good of both I will combine,—
In women, I will look for Youth,
—And look for Age, in wine:
And then—and then—I'll bless
—This twain that gives me happiness!

Wanting so the Face divine,
I searched within this soul of mine,
But there the Image is so dim:
Unlike, unlike, it seems to Him.

Weary of heart, with faith grown weak,
Again, the vanished Face I seek.
Lo! In my need, God sends me thee:
And from thy soul, He smiles on me!