Hail! Childish slaves of social rules
You had yourselves a hand in making!
How I could shake your faith, ye fools,
If but I thought it worth the shaking.
I see, and pity you; and then
Go, casting off the idle pity,
In search of better, braver men,
My own way freely through the city.

My own way freely, and not yours;
And, careless of a town's abusing.
Seek real friendship that endures
Among the friends of my own choosing.
I'll choose my friends myself, do you hear?
And won't let Mrs. Grundy do it,
Tho' all I honour and hold dear

Of hearts disconsolate see to the state:
To bear a breaking heart may prove thy fate.

Help to be happy those thine aid can bless,
Mindful of thine own day of helplessness.

If thou at others' doors need'st not to pine
In thanks to Allah drive no man from thine.

Over the orphan's path protection spread!
Pluck out his heart-grief, lift his drooping head.

When with his neck bent low thou spiest one,
Kiss not the lifted face of thine own son!

Take heed these go not weeping. Allah's throne
Shakes to the sigh the orphan breathes alone.

I have grete marvel of a brid
That with my love is went away;
She bildes her in another stid:
Therfore I morn both night and day.
I couth never serve that brid to pay,
Ne frendship with her can I none find,
But fast fro me she flys away—
Alas that ever she was unkind!

Alas! why is she with me wroth,
And to that brid I trespast nought?
Ye, if she be never so loth,
She shall nought come out of my thought.
Now of me she gives right nought,
But bildes her fer under a lind,
In bitter bales she has me brought—

There are large flourishing trees
Cool spring water
And lots of different animals
This is my home
My grandparents lived here
Grandpa cut
The big trees
But they bravely sprang up again
The animals here
All know me
In the grass or in the trees
They look at me
The wind springs from the valley
Telling tales of my ancestors
It says
The shadows of my ancestors
Still float amid the white clouds
The brave spirit of my ancestors
Still hangs amid the big, old trees
But the footprints of my ancestors
Were overgrown by the grass a long time ago.

Let not Today, procrastinating, borrow
One single Precious Hour of Tomorrow.

I T will not do Itself; while you delay,
The Task grows harder; put it through Today!

Today is all your own;
Tomorrow, God's alone.

I N Putting Off your Tasks and Ruing them
You Waste more Time than you would Spend in Doing them.

A M AN consumes the Time you make him Wait
In thinking of your Faults—so don't be late!

Bright pearl, kingfisher plume bed drapes,
Gold leaf, sheer green silk door tapestries
Lifting now and then with the wind.
I imagine I see your charming face
At dawn when you put on your tiara,
At dark when you slip off your silk dress
Well, give yourself to Mr. Libertine!
Does love have to be selfish?

A THOUSAND fops may flatter to deceive,
Yet doubt their transports, nor their vows believe;
But if a feeling heart with love should burn,
Approve the passion, and the love return;
For few the joys this checquer'd life bestows,
Its pleasures fleeting! permanent its woes!
Yet love can gild, with brightest rays the scene,
And hope can make the barren desart green;
For sure if bliss to human kind is known,
'Tis when two breasts a mutual passion own;
When hopes and fears to one dear object tend,
And the sweet mistress is the truest friend!

Whene'er I lift my eyes to bliss,
I stagger blind with pain,
Afar into the folding night
The silence, and the rain.

Whene'er I feel the urge of Spring,
A throbbing, unknown woe
Enfolds me; I am desolate
When love is calling low.

Faith is the spirit that makes man's body and blood
Sacred, to crown when life and death have ceased
His heavenward head for high fame's holy feast;
But as one swordstroke swift as wizard's rod
Made Cæsar carrion and made Brutus God,
Faith false or true, born patriot or born priest,
Smites into semblance or of man or beast
The soul that feeds on clean or unclean food;
Lo here the faith that lives on its own light,
Visible music; and lo there, the foul
Shape without shape, the harpy throat and howl.
Sword of the spirit of man! arise and smite,

Armies he's seen—the herds of war,
But never such swarms of men
As now in the Nineveh of the North—
How mad the Rebellion then!

And yet but dimly he divines
The depth of that deceit,
And superstitution of vast pride
Humbled to such defeat.

Seductive shone the Chiefs in arms—
His steel the nearest magnet drew;
Wreathed with its kind, the Gulf-weed drives—
'Tis Nature's wrong they rue.

His face is hidden in his beard,
But his heart peers out at eye—
And such a heart! like a mountain-pool
Where no man passes by.