When Peter sang the rafters rang,
He made the great church reel;
His voice it rang a clarion clang,
Or like a cannon's peal.
Yes, Peter made the rafters ring,
And never curbed his tongue;
Albeit Peter could not sing,
Yet Peter always sung.
Ah, wide did he his wild voice fling
Promiscuous and free;
Despite the fact he could not sing,
Why, all the more sang he.
With clamorous clang
And resonant bang
His thunders round he flung;
He could not sing
One single thing:
Yet Peter always sung.

There were three cavaliers that went over the Rhine,
And gayly they called to the hostess for wine.
" And where is thy daughter? We would she were here, —
Go fetch us that maiden to gladden our cheer! "

" I 'll fetch thee thy goblets full foaming, " she said,
" But in yon darkened chamber the maiden lies dead. "
And lo! as they stood in the doorway, the white
Of a shroud and a dead shrunken face met their sight.

Then the first cavalier breathed a pitiful sigh,
And the throb of his heart seemed to melt in his eye,

Fair is the castle up on the hill—
Hushaby, sweet my own!
The night is fair, and the waves are still,
And the wind is singing to you and to me
In this lowly home beside the sea—
Hushaby, sweet my own!

On yonder hill is store of wealth—
Hushaby, sweet my own!
And revellers drink to a little one's health;
But you and I bide night and day
For the other love that has sailed away—
Hushaby, sweet my own!

See not, dear eyes, the forms that creep
Ghostlike, O my own!
Out of the mists of the murmuring deep;

Shall I woo the one or other?
Both attract me — more 's the pity!
Pretty is the widowed mother,
And the daughter, too, is pretty.

When I see that maiden shrinking,
By the gods I swear I 'll get 'er!
But anon I fall to thinking
That the mother 'll suit me better!

So, like any idiot ass
Hungry for the fragrant fodder,
Placed between two bales of grass,
Lo, I doubt, delay, and dodder!

I own no park, I keep no horse,
I can't afford a stable,
I have no cellar stored with wine,
I set a frugal table;
But still some property is mine,
Enough to suit my notion:
I own a mountain toward the west,
And toward the east an ocean.
Just this one mountain and one sea
Are property enough for me.

A man of moderate circumstance,
A frugal man, like me,
With one good mountain has enough,
Enough with one good sea.
My mountain stretches high enough,
Up where the clouds are curled;
My ocean puts its arms around

Sith it hath pleas'd that First and onlie Faire
To take that beautie to himselfe againe,
Which in this world of sense not to remaine,
But to amaze, was sent, and home repaire,
The loue which to that beautie I did beare,
(Made pure of mortall spots which did it staine,
And endlesse, which euen death cannot impaire,)
I place on him who will it not disdaine.
No shining eyes, no lockes of curling gold,
No blushing roses on a virgine face,
No outward show, no, nor no inward grace,
Shall force hereafter haue my thoughts to hold:

Thou warn'st me, I should heed the Beautiful?
Stay then — reveal it to the spell-bound sense.
Not with the eye, the ear, or heart, I feel
Man's dignity, and Nature's excellence.

I know them, as we know a word of God
Told in mysterious whispers of the night,
Which, waking is not found, but kept in heart,
Till struggling Faith is ravished of its right.

Thus, rising from a dream, but dreaming still,
I walked, in vision-haunted maidenhood,
Fed with high fancies, all unlearn'd of life,
Save its young promise of ideal good.

As One that gazes, starbound, on the sky,
Heeds not a pageant passing in the street;
As one swept onward with a favoring wind
Recks not of wild sea-treasures at his feet;

As one that walks in high, prophetic dreams,
Forgets the throb of earth, and sense of pain;
As conquerors tarry not to count their dead,
Nor lovers weigh their losing in their gain:

So, teachest thou, the soul by God endowed
With lofty impulse, and poetic sweep,
Bereft of all its earthly heritage,
Should still disdain to struggle, or to weep;

Ah! napkin, ominous present of my deare,
Gift miserable, which doth now remaine
The only guerdon of my helpelesse paine,
When I thee got thou shew'd my state too cleare:
I neuer since haue ceased to complaine,
Since I the badge of griefe did euer weare,
Ioy on my face durst neuer since appeare,
Care was the food which did me entertaine.
Now, since made mine, deare napkin, doe not grieue
That I this tribute pay thee from mine eine,
And that, these posting houres I am to live,
I laundre thy faire figures in this brine:

I stand, in evening's shade withdrawn,
Mid twilight's dusky forms,
A Jupiter Pluvius of the lawn,
A local god of storms.
Not mine Jove's thunderbolts which clove
The blasted heath and holt;
I hold the storms of Pluvian Jove
Without his thunderbolt.
The nozzle of my hose I press,
And proudly take my stand;
I stand and pour my thunderless
Tornadoes on the land.

I grasp the nozzle of my hose,
And proudly I opine
Old Adam's Eden life was prose
Compared to life like mine.
Why for his hoseless garden sigh,