To daily tasks we set our hand,
And oft the spirit, pent at home,
Breaks out and longs for Switzerland,
Longs oftener yet and pines for Rome.

I pass'd to-day o'er Walton Heath —
The coming spring-time's earliest stir
Quickened and moved, a happy breath,
In moss, and gorse, and shining fir.

Fortunate firs! who never think
How firs less curst by Fortune's frown
O'er Glion fringe the mountain's brink,
Or dot the slopes to Vevey down.

I cross'd St. George's Hill to-day —
There in the leaf-strewn copse I found

( From Schiller )

Where I am, thou ask'st, and where I wended
When my fleeting shadow pass'd from thee? —
Am I not concluded now, and ended?
Have not life and love been granted me?

Ask, where now those nightingales are singing,
Who, of late, on the soft nights of May,
Set thine ears with soul-fraught music ringing —
Only, while their love liv'd, lasted they.

Find I him, from whom I had to sever? —

From danger must that prudent heart be free,
Rightly that them beforehand will foresee,
A wise man sees the plague before it come,
Not to be hurt thereby, the same will shun:
Chiefly intending how to go aside
In wisdom, from the trap his foes do hide:
So Shipmen, as they passe upon the Seas.

Regard, and so avoide the Rocks with ease
Vanity 'tis to fall into the pit,
So by that means to get quite out of it.
Such one tight honour'd Lord, you are not, for
Ever the Rocks of danger you abbor.
Let those who know you then, truth but confesse,

1

My friends appreciate my way of life,
And bearing wine pots all together come;
We clear the weeds to sit beneath the pine,
With several cups of wine we drunk become
When all the elders midst confusion speak,
And drinking is from all conventions freed;
We do not know if we ourselves exist,
And pay to the material world no heed
In carefree drinking thus ourselves forget,
For in the wine a deeper truth is set.

2

There lived a scholar who was fond of wine,
But since he had no money could not buy;

Wherever in the world I am,
In whatsoe'er estate,
I have a fellowship with hearts
To keep and cultivate;
A work of lowly love to do
For him on whom I wait.

I ask thee for a thoughtful love,
Through constant watching wise
To meet the glad with joyful smiles,
And wipe the weeping eyes;
A heart at leisure from itself
To soothe and sympathize.

In service which thy will appoints
There are no bonds for me:
My inmost heart is taught the truth
That makes thy children free, —
A life of self-renouncing love

I would not work elsewhere but on a farm;
For toil my farm and mulberry leaves suffice
I do it without other laborers,
And cold and hungry feed on husks of rice
I only want enough to eat my fill,
Only expect sufficient grain to eat;
For winter satisfied with country cloth,
Rough linen serves me for the days of heat,
Yet even these desires I cannot meet;
This pitiful reflection gives me pain.
All other men can satisfy their needs,
But my attempts prove clumsy and in vain.
If such a fate is destined to be mine,

High fate is their's, ye sleepless waves, whose ear
Learns Freedom's lesson from your voice of fear;
Whose spell-bound sense from childhood's hour hath known
Familiar meanings in your mystic tone:
Sounds of deep import—voices that beguile
Age of its tears and childhood of its smile,
To yearn with speechless impulse to the free
And gladsome greetings of the buoyant sea!
High fate is their's, who where the silent sky
Stoops to the soaring mountains, live and die;
Who scale the cloud-capt height, or sink to rest

I have written, long years I have written
For the sake of my people and right,
I was true when the iron had bitten
Deep into my soul in the night;
And I wrote not for praise nor for money,
I craved but the soul and the pen,
And I felt not the sting in the honey
Of praising the kindness of men.

You read and you saw without seeing,
My work seemed a trifle apart,
While the truth of things thrilled through my being,
And the wrong of things murdered my heart!
Cast out and despised and neglected,
And weak, and in fear, and in debt,

I saw a neat white cottage by a rill,
A limpid rill, that wound along a glade,
Curling and flashing to the sun; a shade
Of willows brooded over it; a hill,
Not distant, heaved its fresh green slope, and smiled
With daisies and with dandelions; oft
I wandered through such meadows when a child,
And loved the turf below, the sky aloft,
So softly green, so clearly, purely blue;
And as the mild wind, breathing odors, flew
Serenely through the grass tufts, and the crown
Of dandelions filled the fields with down,

Once more I write a line to you,
While darker shadows fall;
Dear friends of mine who have been true
And steadfast through it all.
If I have written bitter rhymes,
With many lines that halt,
And if I have been false at times,
It was not all my fault.

To Heaven's decree I would not bow,
And I sank very low —
The bitter things are written now,
And we must let them go.
But I feel softened as I write;
The better spirit springs,
And I am very sad to-night
Because of many things.