One morn I read the brief memorial lines,
Which told of a great forest's swift decay,
And how they stripp'd the bark from off the pines,
And strove to burn the beetle pest away.
That night the sighing of the Boehmer Wald
Pass'd through my garden in the twilight gloom;
A mighty sigh, the herald of its doom,
For insect hosts move on, but never halt.
Sad was the dirge of those primeval trees,
Grown for a thousand years; nor seem'd it strange
That I, so jealous of the woodman's stroke,
So chary of the lives of pine and oak,

There stood a low and ivied roof,
As gazing rustics tell,
In times of chivalry and song
Yclept the holy well.

Above the ivies' branchlets grey
In glistening clusters shone;
While round the base the grass-blades bright
And spiry fox-glove sprung

The brambles clung in graceful bands,
Chequering the old grey stone
With shining leaflets, whose bright face
In autumn's tinting shone.

Around the fountain's eastern base
A babbling brooklet sped,
With sleepy murmur puilin soft
Adown its gravelly bed.

Clark Colven and his gay ladie,
As they walked to yon garden green,
A belt about her middle gimp,
Which cost Clark Colven crowns fifteen:

‘O hearken weel now, my good lord,
O hearken weel to what I say;
When ye gang to the wall o Stream,
O gang nae neer the well-fared may.’

‘O haud your tongue, my gay ladie,
Tak nae sic care o me;
For I nae saw a fair woman
I like so well as thee.’

He mounted on his berry-brown steed,
And merry, merry rade he on,
Till he came to the wall o Stream,
And there he saw the mermaiden.

Upon the “Chimneys” yesterday
We sat beneath the trees
While sang the birds and softly blew
The flower scented breeze.

You should have been with us upon
Those “Chimney Rocks” and seen
The golden sun in grandeur sink
Behind the hill-tops green.

Like bars across the western sky
Such gorgeous streaks of red,
Such brilliant hues of yellow
Of blue and pink were spread.

So richly blended were those hues
They cast a lovely splendor
Which words cannot describe upon
The budding tree tops tender.

He's something in the city. Who shall say
His fortune was not honorably won?
Few people can afford to give away
As he, or help the poor as he has done.

Neat in his habits, temperate in his life;
Oh, who shall dare his character besmirch?
He hardly ever quarrels with his wife,
And every Sabbath carefully goes to church.

He helps the village club, and in the town
Attends parochial meetings once a week,
Pays for each purchase ready-money down.
Is anyone against him? Who will speak?

There is a widow somewhere in the north

Glance loftily through my book. Take quite a minute
To allot its place among the damned or blest.
And O! be sure to quote the worst thing in it
As the poor author's best.

Say, who this year such refuse
Amongst the corn hath shed,
Rank weeds and wheat that's blighted
That stupefies the head,
Vile darnel, and that greatest bane,
Strong tares that choke the growing grain?

The shooting-match but lately
These hurtful weeds betrayed;
Half blinded seemed the marksmen,
Not one a “bull's eye” made.
The new-made beer was most in fault,
Vile tares were mingled with the malt.

We needs must bolt and winnow
What seems so marred by blight,
The sieve must cleanse it throughly

Row upon row of workers' houses
Stretch at the foot of the factory.
Company houses, dingy and gray,
Each with a high pointed roof
And a puny red spike of chimney,
Narrow and gray, like our lives,
From the factory window I see them.
And yonder on the hill, a jewel in the sunlight,
The house of our boss
Slender columns rising white from the blossoming shrubbery,
Rosy roof all aglow, great glimmering windows.

I look down the long room, like a vast whitewashed jungle,
With its row upon row of machines, all clicking and turning

The steam-shovels had sunk their teeth
Through earth and rock until a hole
Yawned like a black hell underneath,
Like a coal-crater with all the coal
Torn out of her: the shovels bit
The stinking stony broth—and spit.

The Wops went up and down; they spilled
Cement like a groggy soup in chutes;
They mixed the mortar and they filled
The gash with it. . . . Short, swarthy brutes
They were, who reeked of rock and wet
Lime and accumulated sweat.

At first the work was tame enough:
Only another foundation like
Hundreds before and just as tough

At my harte there is a paine.
Neuer paine so pincht my hart;
More then halfe with sorrowe slaine
And the paine will yitt not part

Oh my harte how it dothe bleede
Into droppes of bitter teares!
While my faithfull loue dothe feede
But on fancyes only feares.

Ah poore loue why dost thow liue?
Thus to see thie service loste;
If she will no comforte giue
Make an end, giue vp the ghoste

That she may at last approue
That shee hardly long beleued;
That the hart will die for love
That is not in time releived