English

Repose upon her soulless face,
Dig the grave and leave her;
But breathe a prayer that, in his grace,
He who so loved this toiling race
To endless rest receive her.

Oh, can it be the gates ajar
Wait not her humble quest,
Whose life was but a patient war
Against the death that stalked from far
With neither haste nor rest;

To whom were sun and moon and cloud,
The streamlet's pebbly coil,
The transient, May-bound, feathered crowd,
The storm's frank fury, thunder-browed,
But witness of her toil;

Out of the shadows of sadness,
Into the sunshine of gladness,
Into the light of the blest;
Out of a land very dreary,
Out of a world very weary,
Into the rapture of rest.

Out of to-day's sin and sorrow,
Into a blissful to-morrow,
Into a day without gloom;
Out of a land filled with sighing,
Land of the dead and the dying,
Into a land without tomb.

Out of a life of commotion,
Tempest-swept oft as the ocean,
Dark with the wrecks drifting o'er;
Into a land calm and quiet,

Mute Memory stands at Valour's awful shrine,
In tears Britannia mourns her hero dead;
A world's regret, brave ABERCROMBIE's thine,
For nature sorrow'd as thy spirit fled!

For, not the tear that matchless courage claims,
To honest zeal, and soft compassion due,
Alone is thine—o'er thy adored remains
Each virtue weeps, for all once lived in you.

Yes, on thy deeds exulting I could dwell,
To speak the merits of thy honour'd name;
But, ah! what need my humble muse to tell,
When Rapture's self has echoed forth thy fame?

Among the fields the camomile
Seems blown mist in the lightning's glare:
Cool, rainy odors drench the air;
Night speaks above; the angry smile
Of storm within her stare.

The way that I shall take to-night
Is through the wood whose branches fill
The road with double darkness, till,
Between the boughs, a window's light
Shines out upon the hill.

The fence; and then the path that goes
Around a trailer-tangled rock,
Through puckered pink and hollyhock,
Unto a latch-gate's unkempt rose,
And door whereat I knock.

I SAW a Ruler take his stand,
And trample on a mighty land;
The People crouched before his beck,
His iron heel was on their neck,
His name shone bright through blood and pain,
His sword flashed back their praise again.

I saw another Ruler rise:
His words were noble, good, and wise;
With the calm sceptre of his pen
He ruled the minds and thoughts of men:
Some scoffed, some praised,—while many heard,
Only a few obeyed his word.

Another Ruler then I saw:
Love and sweet Pity were his law;

If the Diviltry mixed wid Man
Is leavin' us far from good,
Faith, let us be honest at least, me lad,
As Divil or Saint we should!

And though few av us walk the path
That the Holier Men have trod,
To be fair wid the Sinner as well as the Saint
Is keepin' in touch wid God!

Had I a power, Lady, to my will,
You should not want Hand Writings. I would fill
Your leaves with Autographs—resplendent names
Of Knights and Squires of old, and courtly Dames,
Kings, Emperors, Popes. Next under these should stand
The hands of famous Lawyers—a grave band—
Who in their Courts of Law or Equity
Have best upheld Freedom and Property.
These should moot cases in your book, and vie
To show their reading and their Serjeantry.
But I have none of these; nor can I send
The notes by Bullen to her Tyrant penn'd

High on the Thracian hills, half hid in the billows of clover,
Thyme, and the asphodel blooms, and lulled by Pactolian streamlet,
She of Miletus lay, and beside her an aged satyr
Scratched his ear with his hoof, and playfully mumbled his chestnuts

Vainly the Maenid and the Bassarid gamboled about her,
The free-eyed Bacchante sang and Pan—the renowned, the accomplished—Executed his difficult solo. In vain were their gambols and dances;
High o'er the Thracian hills rose the voice of the shepherdess, wailing:

To luve unluvit it is ane pane;
For scho that is my soverane,
Sum wantoun man so he hes set hir,
That I can get no lufe agane,
Bot brekis my hairt, & nocht the bettir.

Quhen that I went with that sweit may,
To dance, to sing, to sport and pley,
And oft tymes in my armis plet hir;
I do now murne both nycht & day,
And brekis my hart, & nocht the bettir.

Quhair I wes wont to se hir go
Rycht trymly passand to and fro,
With cumly smylis quhen that I met hir;
And now I leif in pane & wo,

Friend, now for ever gone;
Soul that was dear to me;
No more to see a fretting sun
Set o'er an angry sea.

Lying now, silent, low,
The long night covers thee;
As I await north winds do blow
Musk of thy grave to me.

No more to quote Mynyddog, or the wise
Khayyam, around the cup. . . .
Asleep beneath the Odes of Arvon skies,
The wine all frozen up. . .

Shouldering through this strife,
I know not thou from me;
I seem to live a dual life—
One half are thoughts of thee.