OH , have you seen my Marion,
Sweet summer breezes, flying far
From sun to sun, from star to star?
Have ye caressed her soft brown hair,
And kissed her feet and white arms bare?
Then whither, tell me, hath she flown,
My little one, my love, my own—
My Marion!

My pretty blue-eyed Marion,
Whose small white hands swept o'er my face
With such a dainty, tender grace,
Who slept so softly on my breast,
And woke, a glad bird from her nest;
Bear ye no message, breezes, say,
From her I mourn both night and day—
My Marion!

The golden roses of the glorious mysteries
Grew wild as cowslips on the common land
Hers, who was more humanity's than history's,
Until you banned them as a badge is banned.

The silver roses of the sorrow of Mary,
And the red roses of her royal mirth,
Were free; till you, turned petulant and wary,
Went weeding wild flowers from your mother-earth

Mother of Man; the Mother of the Maker;
Silently speaking as the flowering trees,
What made of her a striker and a breaker
Who spoke no scorn even of men like these?

Happy he
Who, to sweet home retired,
Shuns glory so admired,
And to himself lives free.
Whilst he who strives with pride to climb the skies
Falls down with foul disgrace before he rise.


Let who will
The active life commend,
And all his travels bend
Earth with his fame to fill:
Such fame, so forced, at last dies with his death,
Which life maintained by others' idle breath.


My delights,
To dearest home confined,
Shall there make good my mind,
Not awed with Fortune's spites:

There came a lazy Celt,
Sunny and gay,
And he caused black ice to melt
With the things that he did say.

He said, “O! My Desire,
Behold your Lover stands,
His heart a cage of fire;
Come! Warm cold hands.”

He said, “O! My Delight,
Be happy and be brave,
Weep no more for fright,
For I am a cave.

And I am kind and warm
And shut from icy air,
Where you shall find no harm
But live like a small brown bear.

O! Shelter in me, Sweet,
And let me give you rest,
For I love your hair and your feet,
And your pleasant moving breast.”

Be this Philander's praise,—a well-tuned mind,
Lofty as man, and more than woman kind;
A virgin soul which, spotless yet and bright,
Keeps all the lustre of its native white.
Virtue in him from no cold precept flow'd,
But with a vigorous, genuine ardour glow'd;
So pure his feelings and his sense so strong,
Seldom his head, his heart was never wrong;
Gentle to others, to himself severe,
And mild from pity only, not from fear.
Tender yet firm, and prudent without art,
The sweetest manners and the gentlest heart.
If in so fair a mind there reign'd a fault,

'T IS true, one half of woman's life is hope
And one half resignation. Between there lies
Anguish of broken dreams,—doubt, dire surprise,
And then is born the strength with all to cope.
Unconsciously sublime, life's shadowed slope
She braves; the knowledge in her patient eyes
Of all that love bestows and love denies,
As writ in every woman's horoscope!
She lives, her heart-beats given to others' needs,
Her hands, to lift for others on the way
The burdens which their weariness forsook.
She dies, an uncrowned doer of great deeds.

Oh, there is morning yonder,
And night and noon again;
And I must up and wander
Away against the rain.

The forests would delay me
With a thousand little leaves;
The hilltops seek to stay me,
And valleys dim with eves.

The mist denies the mountains,
The wind forbids the sea;
But, mist or wind, I go to find
The day that calls to me.

For there are mornings yonder,
And noons that call and call;
And there's a day, with arms outheld,
That waits beyond them all.

A glittering host of starry-lustred names
Shine in our England's annals: men who wrought
To give us golden truths in fairy frames,
Or weave the rich-hued thought.

Great-hearted ones, who changed life's common things
To forms of luminous beauty, and gave forth
Their dream-born splendours on bedazzling wings
To charm the wondering earth:

Investing fleshless phantoms of the brain
With shapes of radiant immortality,
Or threading tender words in some sweet strain
To melt men's hearts for aye.

But as the stars, which deep-eyed lustre throw

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Cat! who hast pass'd thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy'd?--How many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears--but pr'ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me--and upraise
Thy gentle mew--and tell me all thy frays
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists--
For all the wheezy asthma,--and for all
Thy tail's tip is nick'd off--and though the fists
Of many a maid have give thee many a maul,