Ever since childhood this constant traveler
Has floated and drifted without a place to stay
Last fall stationed at the edges of the Yangtze
This spring traveling along the banks of the Yellow
I was sent off up with the corvee laborers
Wanting always to talk of my memories of Chu
In the pool chilly and cold the minnows are few
Along the islands sadly honking the geese call
Heavy and hard the steady wind hammers the boat
Heaving and hauling the sails are raised high
The violent waves offer no way of lingering

THE Second S ONG OF THE E LDER S ON

O the strength of the toil of those twenty years, with father, and master, and men!
And the clearer brain of the business man, who has held his own for ten:
O the glorious freedom from business fears, and the rest from domestic strife!
The past is dead, and the future assured, and I'm in the prime of life!

She bore me old, and they kept me old, and they worked me early and late;
I carried the loads of my selfish tribe, from seven to thirty-eight:

She has no heart, but she is fair, —
The rose, the lily, can't outvie her;
She smiles so sweetly, that the air
Seems full of light and beauty nigh her.

She has no heart, but yet her face
So many hues of youth revealing,
With so much liveliness and grace,
That on my soul 't is ever stealing.

She has no heart, she cannot love,
But she can kindle love in mine; —
Strange, that the softness of a dove
Round such a thing of air can twine.

She has no heart, — her eye, though bright,
Has not the brightness of the soul;

Hard by the Wildbrooks I met Mary
When berries smelled sweet and hot—
Mary, I fancy, was seven years old,
And I am never mind what.

‘What are you getting?’ I asked Mary
‘Blackberries. What are you?’
‘Toadflax,’ I answered Mary, ‘and mushrooms.’
‘How many mushrooms?’ ‘Two.’

‘Going to have blackberries stewed for dinner,
‘Or blackberry jam?’ said I.
‘Not goin’ to have neither, said Mary;
‘Goin' to have blackberry pie.’

‘Aren't you lucky!’ I said to Mary.
‘And what sort of name have you got?’

Where shall we go for prophecy? Where shall we go for proof?
The holiday street is crowded, pavement, window and roof;
Band and banner pass by us, and the old tunes rise and fall —
But that great waiting silence is on the people all!

Where is the cheering and laughter of the eight-hour days gone by,
When the holiday heart was careless, and the holiday spirit high?
The friendly jostling and banter, the wit and the jovial call?
But that great waiting silence is over the people all.

O but my heart beats faster — and a gush that was nearly tears:

In honour seated, though you are on by ,
O You pursue the same not egerly ;
Hy though you are, your thoughts are humble still,
Nor can your greatnes you pride with ere fill.

Ever more Hy , the more your lowlines,
Greatly unto your honour, you expresse,
Egerly seeking Noblenes to shew,
Rather then greatnes, to the peoples view.
Titles you like not , truth you do affect:
On Hy, not eager , shews a heart select,
Not built for lesse then a great Architect.

Dove of my heart! I've built a nest
For thee, and for thy young ones too,
Where they may sweetly sleep, caressed
Beneath thy warm and downy breast,
As infants in their cradles do.

I've bent around a limber vine,
To form for thee a cool recess;
I'll scatter roses there, and twine
Above an arch of eglantine,
That all within may charm and bless.

And when the frequent falling showers
Make green the tender turf in May,
I'll go and pluck the young-eyed flowers,
Just opening in the lilac bowers,
And on thy mossy pillow lay.

They were men of many nations, they were men of many stations,
They were men in many places, and of high and low degree;
Men of many types and faces, but, alike in all the races —
They were men I met in trouble, and the men who stuck to me.

Some were " friends " , but most were strangers; some were weary world-wide rangers;
Some in freedom were in prison, and in prison some were free.
O I have a vivid vision of the men I met in prison —
In the craving for tobacco they were men who stuck to me.

Let us love while life is young,
And the vital stream is glowing;
When the heart is newly strung,
And the tide of health is flowing.

Let us pluck the Paphian rose,
When its bud is first unfolding;
Ere its withered petals close,
In the misty darkness moulding.

Pluck it, when the morning dew
Twinkles on the new-blown flower,
And the vernal sky of blue
Opens through the melting shower.

Pluck it, when the air is sweet,
And the winds no more are chilling;
When the loving swallows meet,

I heard a thrush sing in the flowering may,
All in the morning cool,
Whilst Joan and Jack ran to the river to play
And found a silvery salmon in a pool.

Now all these five fair things, I wished them joy —
Kindred and close to me:
" For I have been, ere now, a girl and a boy,
A bush, a bird, and a dumb fish in the sea."