English

All needful works accomplished and endured,
Nearer, and yet more near, my God to Thee;
Touch we the things that are, with hand assured,
With hand relaxed, the things that seem to be

Lest, like the expiration of a breath,
Which a child breathes and watches on a glass,
Our breath of being all absorbed, in Death,
With all those things that pass away, we pass.

For where the treasure is the heart, we know,
Is; and where the heart is there the life has root;
And in what soil soever ye may sow,—

Turn from that mirage of a God on high
Holding the sceptre of a creed outworn,
And hearken to the faint half-human cry
Of Nature quickening with the God unborn!

The God unborn, the God that is to be,
The God that has not been since Time began,—
Hark,—that low sound of Nature's agony
Echoed thro' life and the hard heart of Man!

Fed with the blood and tears of living things,
Nourish'd and strengthen'd by Creation's woes,
The God unborn, that shall be King of Kings,
Sown in the darkness, thro' the darkness grows.

My name is Stanford Barnes, I come from Nobleville town;
I've traveled this wide world over, I've traveled this wide world round.
I've met with ups and downs of life, but better days I've saw;
But I've never knew what mis'ry were till I came to Arkansas.

I landed in St. Louis with ten dollars and no more;
I read the daily papers till both my eyes were sore;
I read the evening papers till at last I saw
Ten thousand men were wanted in the state of Arkansas.

I wiped my eyes with great surprise when I read this grateful news,

Old oake, and you thicke groue,
I euer shall you loue,
With these sweet-smelling briers;
For, briers, oake, groue, yee crowned my desires,
When vnderneath your shade
I left my woe, and Flore her maidenhead.

Thou sacred mount, on whose pale forehead now
A desert quiet reigneth, ere the soul
Goes up to sit in meditation there,
She shall put off this world, with all its cares
And fading glory, to commune alone
With God, and with herself, on themes divine!

Thought, on swift wing, darts o'er the dubious waves
Where things promiscuous, by three thousand years,
Are swept together in one shadowy deep,
And rests on Olivet!
She here beholds,
Fleeing for refuge from a wicked son,
And with a wounded spirit bowed to earth,

Weeping and wakeful all the night I lie,
And with the dawn the grace of sleep is near,
But swallows flit about me with their cry,
And banish drowsihead and bring the tear.
Mine eyes must still be weeping, for the dear
Thought of Rhodanthe stirs in memory;
Ye chattering foes have done! it was not I
Who silenced Philomel: go, seek the sheer

Clefts of the hills, and wail for Itylus
Or clamor from the hoopoe's craggy nest,
But let sweet sleep an hour abide with us,
Perchance a dream may come, and we be blest,

Sad, lost in thought, and mute I go:
The cause, ah me! you know full well:
But see that nought thereof you tell,
For men will only laugh at woe—
For men will only laugh at woe.

This month of May, one pleasant eventide,
I heard a young girl singing on the green;
I came upon her where the ways divide,
And said: “God keep you maiden from all teen.

“Maiden, the God of love you keep and save,
And give you all your heart desires,” I cried.
Then she: “Pray tell me, gentle sir and brave,
Whither you wend this pleasant eventide?”

“To you I come, a lover leal and true,
To tell you all my hope and all my care;
Your love alone is what I seek; than you
No woman ever seemed to me more fair.”

They have said evil of my dear;
Therefore my heart is vexed and drear:
But what is it to them
If he be fair or foul to see,
Since he is perfect joy to me.

He loves me well: the like do I:
I do not look with half an eye,
But seek to pleasure him.

From all the rest I choose him here;
I want no other for my dear:
How then should he displease
Those who may leave him if they please?
God keep him from all fear.

Sweet flower, that art so fair and gay,
Come tell me if thou lovest me.
Think well, and tell me presently:
For sore it irks me, by my fay.

For sore it irketh me alway,
That I know not the mind of thee:
I pray thee, gentle lady gay,
If so thou wilt, tell truth to me.

For I do love thee so, sweet May,
That if my heart thou wert to see,
In sooth I know, of courtesy,
Thou wouldst have pity on me this day.