English

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;

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,

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.

I.

There, there, poor dog, my faithful friend,
Pay you no heed unto my sorrow
But feast to-day while yet you may, —
Who knows but we shall starve to-morrow!

II.

" Give us a tune, " the foemen cried,
In one of their profane caprices;
I bade them " No " — they frowned, and, lo!
They dashed this innocent in pieces!

III.

This fiddle was the village pride —

ON READING HIS “SONGS OF FAIR WEATHER.”

Lyrist of woods and waters, loving best
 Pure Nature's alterant charms, thou art to me
 A new Theocritus, whose gaze can see
New joys in that wide Sicily of thy West!
Yet now no longer thou companionest
 Meek flocks on dewy lawns, but wieldest free
 The bow of dead Diana, fallen to thee
By some divine and beautiful bequest!

Thy words, that often are leafage to the sense,
 Have strength like bark and grain of sturdy boughs,

It was a sad, mysterious joy,
The poet gave his buried friend,
That to his country's native flower
His mouldering corse should beauty lend.

Grief, to sublime of passion wrought,
A Guardian at thy tomb shall stand,
“And, from thine ashes may be made
The violet of thy native land.”

It were a thought of bitterness,
In height and flush of life, to know
That, from our forms exanimate
Some baneful poison plant should grow.

Thus, happier he to whose lone grave
Nor Love, nor Fame, its tribute gives,

What footstep but has wandered free and far
Amid that Castle of Sleep whose walls were planned
By no terrestrial craft, no human hand,
With towers that point to no recorded star?
Here sorrows, memories and remorses are,
Roaming the long dim rooms or galleries grand;
Here the lost friends our spirits yet demand
Gleam through mysterious doorways left ajar.

But of the uncounted throngs that ever win
The halls where slumber's dusky witcheries rule,
Who, after wakening, may reveal aright