At fifteen I joined the army,
At eighty I first came home
On the road I met a villager,
" At my home what kin are there? "
" Look over there — that's your home! "
Pine, cypress, burial mounds piled, piled high,
Hares going in through dog holes,
Pheasants flying in through rafter tops;
The inner garden grown wild with corn,
Over the well wild mallow growing.
I pound grain to serve for a meal,
I pick mallow to serve for broth.
Once broth and meal are cooked
I'm at a loss to know whom to feed.
I leave by the gates, look east

I.

Muse, I will show thee, on a grassy mound
Moving with tufted shadows, albeit bare
Herself, for yet young April primes the air
And bloom snow-laden boughs, the tree I love.
London doth compass it with shores of sound
And thrills the buds when there's no breath above
To shake its fountain beauty. Thus I came
Along the courtly mere of thicket isles,
And Spring entoil'd me in a hundred wiles,
Bringing the heart content without a name.
Broods, russet-plumed and emerald, steer'd on
With arrowy wake adown the placid tide,

That Life is a Comedy oft hath been shown,
By all who Mortality's changes have known;
But more like a Volume its actions appear,
Where each Day is a Page and each Chapter a year.
'Tis a Manuscript Time shall full surely unfold,
Though with Black-Letter shaded, or shining with gold;
The Initial, like Youth, glitters bright on its Page,
But its Text is as dark — as the gloom of Old Age.
Then Life's Counsels of Wisdom engrave on thy breast,
And deep on thine Heart be her lessons imprest.

Though the Title stands first it can little declare

I.

Beauty, thou secret lamp, awake!
Tremble into sound!
Burn in me now, as thou didst break
Those glooms profound
When with laughter of Olympians we
Marched to a song,
Vagabonds young, vagabonds free,
Up the mountains long.
Our road over roots of Apennine
Wound up star-proof,
For the thick-enwoven forest pine
Made it a roof
Trebled for the foot-weary wight —

As one who, destined from his friends to part,
Regrets his loss, yet hopes again erewhile,
To share their converse and enjoy their smile,
And tempers as he may affliction's dart, —
Thus, loved associates! chiefs of elder Art!
Teachers of wisdom! who could once beguile
My tedious hours, and lighten every toil,
I now resign you; nor with fainting heart;
For pass a few short years, or days, or hours
And happier seasons may their dawn unfold,
And all your sacred fellowship restore;
When, freed from earth, unlimited its powers,

Hence, hence away, thou murderous Winter: hence
Thy chilling breath, fierce lowered brows, and heart
Reckless of mercy! See, at how foul expense
Of earth's last loveliness in ruthless part
Thou suff'rest the odorous flower no more to bloom,
Nor dear bird sing, nor aught escape thy doom!

Yet art thou doomed thyself. This gracious morn,
This February morn's soft fitful sun and sky
Of tremulous blue, bid hope once more be born.
Hail, herald of a world's renaissance nigh—
Of daffodil, and swallow, and rich song

Creening Yang starts to stir,
Causing root and bulb to obey,
Its rich moisture loving all alike
Radpaw creatures their own ways come forth,
The sound of thunder brings out flowers' glory
Fair-dwellers lean to hear
The barren again give birth,
And so fulfill their destiny
All the people rejoice, rejoice
Blessings are on the young and pregnant
All living things are quickened, quickened
Such is the good gift of Spring.

Who asks of Beauty more than Beauty, asks
But as a dullard, and to Beauty blind:
Air, ocean, earth at their perpetual tasks
Of infinite creation are designed
For senses so insensate all in vain;
Strip off their Beauty, and to such base mind
What matters it, if yet there but remain
Some use immediate for man's wit to find?
Nor what though by Beauty Beauty hath ruined oft
The rarest promise of man's rarest kind,
Turning his pure to foul, his strong to soft,
As poisonous fruit shows fair but in the rind;

When comes my hour to die,
Lord, suffer me not slow lingering to lie
Feeble on bed of sickness, racked with pain.

O suffer me to gain
A speedier exit from this world I love:
Love, if it be too warmly, yet approve

My gratitude, that Thou
So dear hast made to me, I here avow,
The Beauty of Thy hand displayed therein;

Yea, count it for no sin
I paid Thee worship best through admiration
Of the fair marvels in Thy earth's creation.

Assist me, ye friends of Old Books and Old Wine,
To sing in the praises of sage Bannatyne,
Who left such a treasure of old Scottish lore
As enables each age to print one volume more.
One volume more, my friends, one volume more,
We'll ransack old Banny for one volume more.

And first, Allan Ramsay was eager to glean
From Bannatyne's Hortus his bright Evergreen ;
Two light little volumes (intended for four)
Still leave us the task to print one volume more.