English

As I was a-going to Strawberry Fair,
Ri toll ri toll, riddle tol de lido
I saw a fair maiden of beauty rare,
Tol de dee.
I saw a young maiden go selling her ware
As she went on to Strawberry Fair,
Ri tol, ri tol riddle tol de lido,
Ri tol, ri tol, riddle tol de dee.

‘O pretty fair maid, I prithee, tell,
My pretty fair maid, what do you sell?
Oh come tell my truly, my sweet damsel,
As you go on to Strawberry Fair.’

‘Oh I have a lock that doth lack a key,
Oh I have a lock, sir,’ she did say.

As Iwandered round the homestead,
Many a dear, familiar spot
Brought within my recollection
Scenes I'd seemingly forgot.
There the orchard meadow yonder,
Here the deep, old-fashioned well,
With its old moss-covered bucket,
Sent a thrill no tongue can tell.

Though the house was held by strangers,
All remained the same within,
Just as when a child I rambled
Up and down and out and in.
To the garret dark, ascending,
Once a source of childish dread,
Peering through the misty cobwebs,

And thou hast walked about (how strange a story!)
In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
—Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous
—Of which the very ruins are tremendous.

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy.
Thou hast a tongue,—come, let us hear its tune;
Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,—
—Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,

And Bidpai said
the thieves have stormed
across the harbor mole,
they've broken the ship's mast
and plundered its precious cargo,
the captain is still
searching through the alleys
for his old telescope.
It is this story, Dabshalim
I see unfolding, chapter by chapter.

And as we walked the grass was faintly stirred;
We did not speak—there was no need to speak.
Above our heads there flew a little bird,
A silent one who feared that we might seek
Her hard-hid nest.

Poor little frightened one!
If we had found your nest that sunny day
We would have passed it by; we would have gone
And never looked or frightened you away.

O little bird! there's many have a nest,
A hard-found, open place, with many a foe;
And hunger and despair and little rest,
And more to fear than you can know.

An old-time pond, from off whose shadowed depth
Is heard the splash where some lithe frog leaps in.

All night had shout of men and cry
Of woeful women filled His way;
Until that noon of sombre sky
On Friday, clamour and display
Smote Him; no solitude had He.
No silence, since Gethsemane.

Public was Death; but Power, but Might,
But Life again, but Victory,
Were hushed within the dead of night,
The shutter'd dark, the secrecy.
And all alone, alone, alone,
He rose again behind the stone.

The hills and leafless forests slowly yield
To the thick-driving snow. A little while
And night shall darken down. In shouting file
The woodmen's carts go by me homeward-wheeled,
Past the thin fading stubbles, half concealed,
Now golden-gray, sowed softly through with snow,
Where the last ploughman follows still his row,
Turning black furrows through the whitening field.
Far off the village lamps begin to gleam,
Fast drives the snow, and no man comes this way;
The hills grow wintry white, and bleak winds moan

XXXVIII

Alas, madam, for stealing of a kiss
Have I so much your mind there offended?
Have I then done so grievously amiss
That by no means it may be amended?
Then revenge you, and the next way is this:
Another kiss shall have my life ended.
For to my mouth the first my heart did suck;
The next shall clean out of my breast it pluck.

Across the Eastern sky has glowed
The flicker of a blood-red dawn;
Once more the clarion cock has crowed,
Once more the sword of Christ is drawn.
A million burning roof-trees light
The world-wide path of Israel's flight.

Where is the Hebrew's fatherland?
The folk of Christ is sore bestead;
The Son of Man is bruised and banned,
Nor finds whereon to lay his head.
His cup is gall, his meat is tears,
His passion lasts a thousand years

Each crime that wakes in man the beast,
Is visited upon his kind.