English

ALL day had we been gliding o'er the seas,
With swan-like motion; for the skies were fair,
The waters smooth, or by a winning breeze,
But rippled into beauty far and near;
Our bark shot onward with a glad career,
Like a brave steed with motion swift and free;
And now, as to the growing land we near,
Its headlands rising into majesty,
The mighty sun prepares to seek the embracing sea.

It is a sovereign's burial! O'er his brow
Hangs the imperial crown, a golden sphere;
While dark, in sullen majesty below,

Whan shaws beene sheene, and shraddes full fayre,
And leaves both large and longe,
Itt's merrye walkyng in the fayre forrèst
To heare the small birdes songe.

The woodweele sang, and wold not cease,
Sitting upon the spraye,
Soe lowde, he wakened Robin Hood,
In the greenwood where he lay.

Now, by my faye, sayd jollye Robìn,
A sweaven I had this night;
I dreamt me of tow wighty yemèn,
That fast with me can fight.

Methought they did me beate and binde,
And tooke my bowe me froe;

Once I was at a nobleman's wedding—
'Twas of a girl that proved unkind,
But now she begins to think of her losses
Her former true lover still runs in her mind.

“Here is the token of gold that was broken,
Seven long years, love, I have kept it for your sake
You gave to me as a true lover's token,
No longer with me, love, it shall remain.”

The bride she sat at the head of the table,
The words he said she marked them right well;
To sit any longer she was not able,
And down at the bridegroom's feet she fell.

I met thee in the summer time,
The summer of my youth—
In days of my melodious prime
And thine unsullied truth.
I met thee when the jasmine buds
Their velvet locks reveal;
Till I loved thee, till I loved thee,
Darling Damsel of Mobile!

O shining tresses of the sun!
O eyes of ocean blue!
O dainty feet to nimbly run
Upon the glittering dew!
The cypress breathes its gloomy buds
On all I felt and feel—
Still I love thee! Still I love thee!
Darling Damsel of Mobile!

‘And now the summer time no more,

When last you left your Woodbridge pretty,
To stare at sights, and see the City,
If I your meaning understood,
You wish'd a Picture, cheap, but good;
The colouring? decent; clear, not muddy;
To suit a Poet's quiet study,
Where Books and Prints for delectation
Hang, rather than vain ostentation.
The subject? what I pleased, if comely;
But something scriptural and homely:
A sober Piece, not gay or wanton,
For winter fire-sides to descant on;
The theme so scrupulously handled,
A Quaker might look on unscandal'd;

A year ago in Carnival
We danced till break of day;
A year ago in Carnival
The boulevards were gay;
And roses shook the whispering air,
Like a great sibilant soft fanfare.

In Carnival, in Carnival,
A Prince of Magic comes,
To the sound of fifes, and the sound of horns,
And the sound of little drums.

A year ago in Carnival,
The lamps along the quays
Lay softer on the misty night
Than stars in leafy trees,
And down the ribboned sparkling street
Pierrot ran on twinkling feet.

I REMEMBER rooms that have had their part
In the steady slowing down of the heart.
The room in Paris, the room at Geneva,
The little damp room with the seaweed smell,
And that ceaseless maddening sound of the tide—
Rooms where for good or for ill—things died.
But there is the room where we (two) lie dead,
Though every morning we seem to wake and might just as well seem to sleep again
As we shall somewhere in the other quieter, dustier bed
Out there in the sun—in the rain.

As a drenched drowned bee
Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower,
So clings to me
My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears
And laid against her cheek;
Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm,
Swinging heavily to my movement as I walk.
My sleeping baby hangs upon my life,
Like a burden she hangs on me.
She has always seemed so light,
But now she is wet with tears and numb with pain.
Even her floating hair sinks heavily,
Reaching downwards;
As the wings of a drenched, drowned bee

Hail , royal ocean! in thy presence-chamber
Arrived, I feel thy deep abounding life
Transfused into my blood, replenishing
My dwindling store; alone, and at thy feet,
Dear as are human hearts, I am at home!
Sheltered within a cleft of the tall crag,
Granite of many delicate tints, I hear
The wind's vast voice make chorus with the sea's,
Broken upon grim, dark rock-teeth below,
Ruins of the mainland; neighbouring which the shoals
Are green as beryl, wine-stained with the weed
Of stone submerged; one wrinkled indigo

Sigh, O thin sigh, through
what crack have you entered?
With a sliding screen,
a thin-framed screen, and
other sliding doors,
a hinge on the sidepost, and,
on the door, a latch fastened with a
clang, a lock, fastened firmly, of
dragon and turtle design,
a hinged screen folded with a
clatter, a scroll rolled
tightly up, through what
crack could you have entered?
Somehow, on nights when
you come, I cannot sleep.