English

Sweet, bide with me and let my love
Be an enduring tether;
Oh, wanton not from spot to spot,
But let us dwell together.

You 've come each morn to sip the sweets
With which you found me dripping,
Yet never knew it was not dew
But tears that you were sipping.

You gambol over honey meads
Where siren bees are humming;
But mine the fate to watch and wait
For my beloved's coming.

The sunshine that delights you now
Shall fade to darkness gloomy;
You should not fear if, biding here,

There was a man who understood music,
And right at the very next door
There was a man who understood science —
And neither knew anything more.
And next to him was a metaphysician
Of deep psychological lore,
And next to him was a great theologian —
And neither knew anything more.
And all around these was a business crew,
Who attended to business — and that's all they knew.

And it happened the man who understood music
Was the dreariest kind of bore —
A bore to the man who understood science,

I'm an inspector on my rounds
For what I can detect;
Forever, tireless, night and day,
Inspectors should inspect.
A spy, a spotter keen, am I,
Whose business 'tis to pry
Into the secrets of the earth,
The ocean, and the sky.
I'm out on my detective trail,
And work the whole year through,
And in my business hitherto
I've learned a thing or two.

Ah, there are mighty goings-on
Where mighty secrets lurk;
My business 'tis to hide myself,
And watch the whole thing work.

As when, by play retarded, past his hour,
The scampering school-boy ventures to the door,
With throbbing breast, lists to the busy noise,
And starts, to hear the Master's awful voice,
Oft sighs and looks — now offers to burst in,
Now backward shrinks, and dreads a smarting skin,
Till desp'rate grown, by fear detain'd more late,
He lifts the latch, and boldly meets his fate:

So I, dear Sir, have oft snatch'd up the quill
To hail your ear, yet have been silent still.
Aw'd by superior worth my pen forgot

Ah, teacher, let me hear you teach;
You have brave words from olden seers,
The lore of those long-bearded men
Of all the far-off years;
The gray old thoughts of gray old men
Beneath the Asian stars,
Brought safe by fate through clashing years
Of unremembered wars.
And you have read the huddled tomes
Of many an alcoved shelf;
But have you stood beneath the stars
And listened to yourself?

Ah, teacher, let me hear you teach;
You at old sages' feet have sat;
Know you the man within your coat,

Who is the infidel? 'Tis he
Who deems man's thought should not be free,
Who'd veil truth's faintest ray of light
From breaking on the human sight;
'Tis he who purposes to bind
The slightest fetter on the mind,
Who fears lest wreck and wrong be wrought
To leave man loose with his own thought;
Who, in the clash of brain with brain,
Is fearful lest the truth be slain,
That wrong may win and right may flee —
This is the infidel. 'Tis he.

Who is the infidel? 'Tis he
Who puts a bound on what may be;

Again, O Sadness! soft'ning pow'r, again
I woo thee, thoughtful, from this letter'd stone;
And, hail, thou comes! to view the dreary scene
Where ghastly Death has fixt his awful throne.

How lone! how solemn seems each view around?
I see, at distance, oh! distracting sight!
I see the Tomb — — the humble grassy mound,
Where he now lies, once all my soul's delight!

A Youth more gen'rous, more humanely kind,

He's smart, our boarder's smart, they say,
Say he's almighty smart.
An' what's he do? Wall, what d'ye think?
A lecturer on art!
A lecturer on art! Good Lord!
An' what the deuce is art?
A mess of good-for-nothin' gush—
But our girls think he's smart.
“What's art?”I says to him one day,
“'Taint bread, nor cheese, nor meat;
'Taint pie, nor pudd'n', nor corn'-beef,
Nor nothin' fit to eat.”
An' he caved in an' owned right up
'Twarn't nothin' fit to eat.

My girls take everything he says

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:

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,