English

She drew one hair from out the golden strand
And as a prisoner bound my willing hand.
I smiled, poor fool, and thought 'twould easy be
To break my bonds and win my liberty.
But still that hair its captive fast doth bind
And when she draws I follow close behind;
I weep, a victim held in iron chains,
And have no strength to free me from my pains.

For Thursday be the tournament prepar'd,
And gentlemen in lordly jousts compete:
First man with man, together let them meet,—
By fifties and by hundreds afterward.
Let arms with housings each be fitly pair'd,
And fitly hold your battle to its heat
From the third hour to vespers, after meat;
Till the best-winded be at last declared.
Then back unto your beauties, as ye came:
Where upon sovereign beds, with wise control
Of leaches, shall your hurts be swathed in bands.
The ladies shall assist with their own hands,

Ah ! there's Ahouse that I do know
Besouth o' yonder trees,
Where northern winds can hardly blow
But in a softest breeze.
An' there woonce sounded zongs an' teäles
Vrom vaïce o' maïd or youth,
An' sweeter than the nightèngeäle's
Above the copses lewth.

How swiftly there did run the brooks,
How swift wer winds in flight,
How swiftly to their roost the rooks
Did vlee o'er head at night.
Though slow did seem to us the peäce
O' comèn days a-head,
That now do seem as in a reäce
Wi' aïr-birds to ha' vled.

How sweet the sacred legend—if unblamed
In my slight verse such holy things are named—
Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy,
Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy!
Ave, Maria! Pardon, if I wrong
Those heavenly words that shame my earthly song!
The choral host had closed the Angel's strain
Sung to the listening watch on Bethlehem's plain,
And now the shepherds, hastening on their way,
Sought the still hamlet where the Infant lay.
They passed the fields that gleaning Ruth toiled o'er,—
They saw afar the ruined threshing-floor

Who of all statesmen is his country's pride,
Her councils' prompter and her leaders' guide?
He speaks; the nation holds its breath to hear;
He nods, and shakes the sunset hemisphere.
Born where the primal fount of Nature springs
By the rude cradles of her throneless kings,
In his proud eye her royal signet flames,
By his own lips her Monarch she proclaims.
Why name his countless triumphs, whom to meet
Is to be famous, envied in defeat?
The keen debaters, trained to brawls and strife,
Who fire one shot, and finish with the knife,

What ailed young Lucius? Art had vainly tried
To guess his ill, and found herself defied.
The Augur plied his legendary skill;
Useless; the fair young Roman languished still.
His chariot took him every cloudless day
Along the Pincian Hill or Appian Way;
They rubbed his wasted limbs with sulphurous oil,
Oozed from the far-off Orient's heated soil;
They led him tottering down the steamy path
Where bubbling fountains filled the thermal bath;
Borne in his litter to Egeria's cave,
They washed him, shivering, in her icy wave.

The Banker's dinner is the stateliest feast
The town has heard of for a year, at least;
The sparry lustres shed their broadest blaze,
Damask and silver catch and spread the rays;
The florist's triumphs crown the daintier spoil
Won from the sea, the forest, or the soil;
The steaming hot-house yields its largest pines,
The sunless vaults unearth their oldest wines;
With one admiring look the scene survey,
And turn a moment from the bright display.
?Of all the joys of earthly pride or power,

In Jacob he hath not seen evil or guile
Nor in Israel perversness his truth to defile
Their Lord & their God these good tidings doth bring
& behold in their camps are the shouts of a king
God brought them from Egypt from bondage & ill
& he is as strong as a unicorn still
There is no enchantment can Jacob alarm
& Israel there's no divinations to harm
Of Jacob & Israel said it shall be
What hath God wrought that his people are free
Behold like a lion the people shall rise

'Tis good to keep hinderward eyes
For the lessons in paths we have trod;
'Tis good to be wary & wise,
—Why linger so long on the way?
All that is no more than to say—
'Tis good to be Clodd!

The Buddha, with head like the crown
Of an infant or pea in a pod,
Immersed in the study hued brown;
Uprises at length on a start,
Nirvana rejects from his heart—
‘I'd rather be Clodd!’

Ah, not this marble, dead and cold:
Far from its base and shaft expanding—the round zones circling, comprehending,
Thou, Washington, art all the world's, the continents' entire—not yours alone, America,
Europe's as well, in every part, castle of lord or laborer's cot,
Or frozen North, or sultry South—the African's—the Arab's in his tent,
Old Asia's there with venerable smile, seated amid her ruins;
(Greets the antique the hero new? 'tis but the same—the heir legitimate, continued ever,
The indomitable heart and arm—proofs of the never-broken line,