Sunbeams that flicker! with laughter and song
A vessel that merrily swings along!
With a lightsome heart and comrades dear
I sat inside with never a fear.

But the ship was wrecked and fell asunder;
My friends, weak swimmers all, went under.
By the Fatherland they sank in the sea;
To the shores o the Seine the storm bore me.

And now I sit in another boat;
With comrades new I toss and float
On foreign billows, without a chart—
My home how far! How sad my heart!

And we sing and we laugh, o'er the waters driven—

I will not go alone, my delicate love,
Thou must journey with me!
To the dear, old, pleasing, shivering den
In the drear, cold, freezing, quivering glen
Where my mother squats at the entrance gate
Her dear son's coming home to await.

“Nay then, unhand me, gloomy man!
Who has called thee hither?
Thy hot breath blows, but thy touch is bleak;
Thy bright eye glows, but pale is thy cheek.
Whilst I would have gleeful things for mine,
With scent of roses and sweet sunshine.”

Let the roses blossom—the sun shine out,
My sweetest sweetheart!

Voice, with what emulous fire thou singest free hearts of old fashion,
English scorners of Spain, sweeping the blue sea-way,
Sing me the daring of life for life, the magnanimous passion
Of man for man in the mean populous streets of To-day!

Hand, with what color and power thou couldst show, in the ring hot-sanded,
Brown Bestiarius holding the lean tawn tiger at bay,
Paint me the wrestle of Toil with the wild-beast Want, bare-handed;
Shadow me forth a soul steadily facing Today!

Smoke and tawny air;
Bricks blurred with black,
Softened with dusk,
Edges clouded with smoke—
Great human things, beautiful with ugliness,
Gripping our hearts because you are so big and clumsy and kind,
Going with dream-misted eyes:
Tenderly you take our love, with welcome,
Coarse and strong and friendly.

From the sombre clouds fell snow
On the meadows far below,
On the river late so calm,
When the waves had hushed their psalm.
Through the softly falling snow
Something fluttered to and fro,
Gold light shimmered through the snow;
And a murmur filled the air.
Was it melody or prayer?

Like resplendent shooting stars
Radiance gleamed through snow-flake bars;
Through the silence of the night,
Said the trav'ler on the height,
“What can be that vision rare?”
'Twas a maid with golden hair,
Singing in the frosty air,
Ay,—a carol faint and low,—

Cruel charmer, tell me why
You'll not let me live or die?
First your smiles they give me joy,
Then your frowns my hopes destroy.
When you see my raging pain,
Out of sport you smile again.

Thus with a tyrannic art
You torment my bleeding heart,
Taking pleasure in my grief,
Yet affording no relief.
O, pronounce my doom outright,
And in pity kill me quite!

This is the day sacred to mirth and joy,
In which the happy, happy pair were join'd;
Let boundless pleasure ev'ry soul employ;
The swain is blest, the lovely nymph is coy.

Sweet hand! the sweet yet cruel bow thou art,
From whence at one, five ivory arrows fly,
So with five wounds at once I wounded lie
Bearing in breast the print of every dart.
Saint Francis had the like, yet felt no smart:
Where I in living torments never die,
His wounds were in his hands and feet where I
All these same helpless wounds feel in my heart.
Now as Saint Francis (if a saint) am I.
The bow which shot these shafts a relic is;
I mean the hand, which is the reason why
So many for devotion thee would kiss,
And I thy glove kiss as a thing divine;

The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell,
The stiffened air exploring in the dawn,
And making slow acquaintance with the day;
Delaying now upon its heavenward course,
In wreathed loiterings dallying with itself,
With as uncertain purpose and slow deed,
As its half-wakened master by the hearth,
Whose mind still slumbering and sluggish thoughts
Have not yet swept into the onward current
Of the new day;—and now it streams afar,
The while the chopper goes with step direct,
And mind intent to swing the early axe.

The smothered streams of love, which flow
More bright than Phlegethon, more low,
Island us ever, like the sea,
In an Atlantic mystery.
Our fabled shores none ever reach,
No mariner has found our beach,
Scarcely our mirage now is seen,
And neighboring waves with floating green,
Yet still the oldest charts contain
Some dotted outline of our main;
In ancient times midsummer days
Unto the western islands' gaze,
To Teneriffe and the Azores,
Have shown our faint and cloud-like shores.

But sink not yet, ye desolate isles,