English

Ihear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses;
All night, from their stalls, the importunate tramping and neighing.
Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle,
Straight, grim, and abreast, go the weatherworn, galloping legion,
With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.

The trail is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses;
There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us:

I had a dove and the sweet dove died;
And I have thought it died of grieving:
O what could it grieve for? Its feet were tied,
With a silken thread of my own hand's weaving;
Sweet little red feet! why should you die--
Why should you leave me, sweet bird! Why?
You lived alone in the forest-tree,
Why, pretty thing! would you not live with me?
I kissed you oft and gave you white peas;
Why not live sweetly, as in the green trees?

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And each damp thing that creeps and crawls
Went wobble-wobble on the walls.

Faint odours of departed cheese,
Blown on the dank, unwholesome breeze,
Awoke the never-ending sneeze.

Strange pictures decked the arras drear,
Strange characters of woe and fear,
The humbugs of the social sphere.

One showed a vain and noisy prig,
That shouted empty words and big
At him that nodded in a wig.

And one, a dotard grim and gray,
Who wasteth childhood's happy day

Ibring you the scent of the earth on my body,
The smell of the leaves in my hair;
I come with the wind and the water upon me,
And never a care!

I been walking all day
and all night too
I been walking all day
and all night too
'Cause my meal-ticket woman have quit me
and I can't find no work to do

I picken up the news paper
and I looked in the ads
Says I picken up the news paper
and I looken in the ads
And the policeman come along
and he arrested me for vag

(Now, boys, you ought to see me in my black and white suit

It won't do.)

I said, Judge,
Judge, what may be my fine?
Lord I say Judge,
Judge, what may be my fine?

I been drifting and
rolling along
the road

Looking
for my room and board

Like a log I've
been jammed on
the bank
So hungry
I've grew lean and lank

Get me a pick and
shovel, dig down
in the ground
Gonna keep on
digging till the blues come down

Mmmmmmmmmm mmmmmm mmmm
Mmmmmm mmmmmm
Mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm

I've got the blues
for my sweet man
in jail
Now and the judge
won't let me go his bail

I've been rolling and
drifting from shore

The hunt is up,
The hunt is up,
And now it is almost day;
And he that's in bed with another man's wife,
It's time to get him away.

‘How brent 's your brow, my Lady Elspat!
How golden yallow is your hair!
Of all the maids of fair Scotland,
There 's nane like Lady Elspat fair.’

‘Perform your vows, Sweet William,’ she says,
‘The vows which ye ha made to me,
An at the back o my mother's castle
This night I 'll surely meet wi thee.’

But wae be to her brother's page,
Who heard the words this twa did say!
He 's told them to her lady mother,
Who wrought Sweet William mieckle wae.

For she has taen him Sweet William,

The hour-hand and the minute-hand upon a polished dial
A meeting planned at twelve o'clock to walk and talk awhile.
The Hour-hand with the Minute-hand could never keep apace.
“The speed at which you move,” he said, “is really a disgrace!”

Then laughed the Minute-hand and sang, “The way that I must go
Is marked with milestones all along, and there are twelve, you know.
And I must call at each of these before my journey's done,
While you are creeping like a snail from twelve o'clock to one.

High are the mountains and low is the plain,
Where Billy the Kid comes a-ridin' again.

Old Juánico sees him—black on the moon,
And two haggard horsemen come following soon.

Now topping the rim-rock, now hid in a vale,
Four ghostly white riders press close on his trail.

No thudding of hoofbeats, no sound anywhere,
But nine silent dead men are racing the air.

Beyond the old courthouse and following fast,
The tenth pale pursuer springs out of the past.

Old Juánico sees them—no other eye can,