How healthily their feet upon the floor
Strike down! These are no spirits, but a band
Of children, surely, leaping hand in hand
Into the air in groups of three and four,
Wearing their silken rags as if they wore
Leaves only and light grasses, or a strand
Of black elusive seaweed oozing sand,
And running hard as if along a shore.
I know how lost forever, and at length
How still these lovely tossing limbs shall lie,
And the bright laughter and the panting breath;
And yet, before such beauty and such strength,
Once more, as always when the dance is high,

On the warm Sunday afternoons
And every evening in the Spring and Summer
When the night hurries the late home-comer
And the air grows softer, and scraps of tunes
Float from the open windows and jar
Against the voices of children and the hum of a car;
When the city noises commingle and melt
With a restless something half-seen, half-felt—
I see them always there,
Upon the low, smooth wall before the church;
That row of little girls who sit and stare
Like sparrows on a granite perch.
They come in twittering couples or walk alone

To be, be thine;
To work, to worship, and to wish be mine.

O, WHERE is the place where the sad heart may rest,
And hush all its sorrows and fears?
O, can the wide world show a region so blest,
Where the Ice Spirit never appears?

It chills the warm current of life in the veins,
To feel but his terrible breath:
He flutters his wings o'er the gardens and plains;
They are still and as silent as death.

The stream in yon meadow that sparkles so gay,
And, murmuring, hurries along,
The Ice Spirit shall stop in its flowery way,
And silence its heart-touching song.

This lovely morn the dewdrops flash
Like diamonds on the grass—
A blaze of sparkling jewels! But
The autumn wind, alas!
Scatters them as I pass.

As mastiff dogs in modern phrase are
Called Pompey, Scipio, and Caesar;
As pies and daws are often styled
With Christian nicknames like a child;
As we say 'Monsieur' to an ape
Without offence to human shape:
So men have got from bird and brute
Names that would best their natures suit:
The lion, eagle, fox and boar
Were heroes' titles heretofore,
Bestowed as hieroglyphics fit

To show their valour, strength or wit.
For what is understood by fame
Besides the getting of a name?
But e'er since men invented guns,
A different way their fancy runs:

The God's! One Time, as Poet's feign,
Would Pleasure intermix with Pain;
And perfectly incorp'rate, so
As one from t'other, none might know;
That Mortals might alike partake
The Good, or Evil, which they make.

In mighty Bowl, they put these twain;
And stir'd, and stir'd, but all in vain:
Pleasure! wou'd sometimes float aloft,
And Pain! keep Pleasure down as oft;
Yet still, from One another fly,
Detesting eithers Company.

The Gods! who saw they sooner might
Mix Fire and Water, Day and Night;
Unanimously then decreed,

O Leeze me on my spinnin-wheel,
And leeze me on my rock and reel;
Frae tap to tae that cleeds me bien,
And haps me fiel and warm at e'en!
I'll set me down and sing and spin,
While laigh descends the simmer sun,
Blest wi' content, and milk and meal,
O leeze me on my spinnin-wheel.—

On ilka hand the burnies trot,
And meet below my theekit cot;
The scented birk and hawthorn white
Across the pool their arms unite,
Alike to screen the birdie's nest,
And little fishes' callor rest:
The sun blinks kindly in the biel'

“Christmas, Merry Christmas!”
Cries the proud man at his board,
As he thinks upon his larder,
With the choicest dainties stored;
“Christmas, Merry Christmas!”
Grunts the gourmond by his side,
Till his sluggish soul is gladdened,
And his bosom swells with pride.

“Christmas, Merry Christmas!”
Shouts the toper o'er his glass;
“Here's a health to Merry Christmas—
Toast it quickly, ere it pass!”
“Christmas, Merry Christmas!”
Shouts his friend with drunken glee,
Though to him this Merry Christmas
Is a day of misery.

The Fast is over, the Festival is come,
and hearts are lifted up, and the wine is sparkling in the wine-house,
and wine we must drink!
The turn of the heavy dealer in abstinence is past,
the season of joy is arrived,
and of joyous revelers!
Why should reproach be heaped upon him,
who like me quaffeth wine?
This is neither sin or fault in the jovial lover!
The drinker of wine,
in whom is no false show and no dissimulation
is better than he who is a trader in semblances.
We are neither dissembling revelers
nor the comrades of hypocrites: