English

Round about in a fair ring-a,
Thus we dance and thus we sing-a;
Trip and go, to and fro,
Over this green-a;
All about, in and out,
Over this green-a.

Robins sang in England,
Frost or rain or snow,
All the long December days
Endless years ago.

Robins sang in England
Before the Legions came,
Before our English fields were tilled
Or England was a name.

Robins sang in England
When forests dark and wild
Stretched across from sea to sea
And Jesus was a child.

Listen! in the frosty dawn
From his leafless bough
The same brave song he ever sang
A robin's singing now.

Río Grande de Loíza! … Undulate into my spirit
And let my soul founder in your rivulets,
To seek the fountain that stole you as a child
And in mad haste returned you to the path.

Wind into my lips and let me drink you,
To feel you mine for a brief moment,
And hide you from the world in myself
And hear voices of fear in the mouth of the wind.

Come down for an instant from the spine of the earth,
And seek the intimate secret of my longing;
Confounded in the sweep of my bird fantasies,
Drop a water rose in my dreams.

Judge not; the workings of his brain
And of his heart thou canst not see;
What looks to thy dim eyes a stain,
In God's pure light may only be
A scar, brought from some well-won field,
Where thou wouldst only faint and yield.

The look, the air, that frets thy sight
May be a token that below
The soul has closed in deadly fight
With some infernal fiery foe,
Whose glance would scorch thy smiling grace,
And cast thee shuddering on thy face!

The fall thou darest to despise,—
May be the angel's slackened hand

When Alysandyr our King was dede
That Scotland led in luve and le,
Away was sons of ale and brede,
Of wine and wax, of gamyn and gle;
Our gold was changyd into lede.
Christ born into Virginitie
Succour Scotland and remede
That stad is in perplexytie.

A Pie sat on a pear tree,
A Pie sat on a pear tree,
A Pie sat on a pear tree,
Heigho, heigho, heigho!

Then once so merrily hop't she,
Then once so merrily hop't she,
Then once so merrily hop't she,
Heigho, heigho, heigho!

Peter White will ne'er go right;
Would you know the reason why?
He follows his nose wherever he goes,
And that stands all awry.

Peter of the brothers three
Loved a life of poesy;
While they stolid bargains drove
He saw movies in the stove.

Peter was a man of peace,
Happily he tended geese;
Though his brothers, as they rose,
Ran a motor 'neath his nose.

Peter knew his limitations,—
Never needed intimations
Which tunes he was not to sing,
What new cabbage pleased the king.

Peter saw expedience
Was the way of common sense;
Sitting quiet on the down
Grabbed the princess and the crown.

The paralytic man has dropped in death
The crossing-sweeper's brush to which he clung,
One-handed, twisted, dwarfed, scanted of breath,
Although his hair was young.

I saw this year the winter vines of France,
Dwarfed, twisted goblins in the frosty drouth—
Gnarled, crippled, blackened little stems askance
On long hills to the South.

Great green and golden hands of leaves ere long
Shall proffer clusters in that vineyard wide.
And O his might, his sweet, his wine, his song,
His stature, since he died!

Out of the night to my leafy porch they came,
A thousand moths. Did He who made the toad
Give them their wings upon the starry road?
Restless and wild, they circle round the flame,
Frail wonder-shapes that man can never tame—
Whirl like the blown flakes of December snows,
Tinted with amber, violet and rose,
Marked with hieroglyphs that have no name.
Out of the summer darkness pours the flight:
Unknown the wild processional they keep.
What lures them to this rush of mad delight?
Why are they called from nothingness and sleep?