The King's most humble servant, I
Can scarcely spare a minute;
But I'll be wi' you by an' bye,
Or else the deil 's be in it.

We are of those who tremble at Thy word;
Who faltering walk in darkness toward our close
Of mortal life, by terrors curbed and spurred:
We are of those.

We journey to that land which no man knows
Who any more can make his voice be heard
Above the clamour of our wants and woes.

Not ours the hearts Thy loftiest love hath stirred,
Not such as we Thy lily and Thy rose:—
Yet, Hope of those who hope with hope deferred,
We are of those.

Nymph of the rock! whose dauntless spirit braves
The beating storm, and bitter winds that howl
Round thy cold breast; and hear'st the bursting waves
And the deep thunder with unshaken soul;
Oh come!—and shew how vain the cares that press
On my weak bosom—and how little worth
Is the false fleeting meteor, Happiness,
That still misleads the wanderers of the earth!
Strengthen'd by thee, this heart shall cease to melt
O'er ills that poor Humanity must bear;
Nor friends estranged, or ties dissolved be felt
To leave regret, and fruitless anguish there:

Where the beach is flat and flowing,
Wavelets coming, wavelets going,
There the small Mer-children play,
In silver night, in golden day,—
They need never go away.

As we love the sight of ocean,
Sound and color, light and motion,
All mer-children, understand,
Love the stretches of warm sand—
Dearly love to play on land.

As each earth-born son and daughter
Loves the feeling of the water,
Rippling, rolling, here and there,
Over small feet brown and bare—
So the Mer-child loves the air.

Large ones catch the tails of small ones,

In mid Atlantic are its mazes spread,
Wide as the basin of our kingly stream;
Barred of all hope that hitherward has led,
Do vessels snared within its meshes seem.
Columbus, first to thread this weedy sea,
Thought he had reached here navigation's bound,
But pushing boldly on till all was free,
At last the longed-for, unknown land was found.
In life's mid-ocean heaves a sea of Doubt:—
Wise are the souls that past it learn to steer;
Yet tangled there, who toiling struggle out,
Finding once more the ocean pathway clear,

I never hear a lark its matins sing,
But I bethink me of that orphan nest,
Where once I saw a little callow thing,
Erect, with death-cold wings, above the rest,
As tho' he lived and pleaded. Light and shade
Swept in and out of his poor open maw,
While underneath his silent feet I saw
A short-breathed group of helpless orphans laid.
The life was ebbing from each infant throat,
Too young as yet for music's earliest note;
High up a living lark sang loud and free—
Keen was the contrast—it was sad to mark

The little bee returns with evening's gloom,
To join her comrades in the braided hive,
Where, housed beside their mighty honeycomb,
They dream their polity shall long survive.
Still falls the summer night—the browsing horse
Fills the low portal with a grassy sound
From the near paddock, while the water-course
Sends them sweet murmurs from the meadow-ground;
None but such peaceful noises break the hush,
Save Pussy, growling, in the thyme and sage,
Over the thievish mouse, in happy rage:
At last, the flowers against the threshold brush

Friend, there be they on whom mishap
Or never or so rarely comes,
That, when they think thereof, they snap
Derisive thumbs:

And there be they who lightly lose
Their all, yet feel no aching void;
Should aught annoy them, they refuse
To be annoyed:

And fain would I be e'en as these!
Life is with such all beer and skittles;
They are not difficult to please
About their victuals:

The trout, the grouse, the early pea,
By such, if there, are freely taken;
If not, they munch with equal glee
Their bit of bacon:

At night walking along the streets, the darker because of trees,
we came to a tree, white with flowers,
and the pavement under the branches was white with flowers too.

Going to work in the subway
this bright May morning
you have put on red slippers;
do they dance behind the counters
in the store, or about the machines
in the shop where you work?