There was a young girl of Lahore,
The same shape behind as before.
— As no one knew where
— To offer a chair,
She had to sit down on the floor.

There was a young girl of Asturias,
Whose temper was frantic and furious.
— She used to throw eggs
— At her grandmother's legs —
A habit unpleasant, but curious.

The sun doth not the hidden place reveal,
Whence pours at morn his golden flood of light;
But what the night's dark breast would fain conceal,
In its true colors walks before our sight;
The bird does not betray the secret springs,
Whence note on note her music sweetly pours;
Yet turns the ear attentive while she sings,
The willing heart while falls the strain adores;
So shall the spirit tell not whence its birth,
But in its light thine untold deeds lay bare;
And while it walks with thee flesh-clothed the earth,

There was a young fellow named Tait,
Who dined with his girl at 8.08;
But I'd hate to relate
What that fellow named Tait
And his tête-a-tête ate at 8.08.

The Word must fall; but where the well-tilled ground
Without a stone or briar to choke the seed;
Where can the deep, black earth it needs be found,
That shall the plant with plenteous juices feed?
Break up your fallow lands! the seed is sown
With heaven's own richness in each bosom's field,
Cut down the tares that rankly there have grown,
And heavy crops the word of God shall yield;
Cut down your will that sows the deadly tare,
That bears no fruit but for your own dark breast;
Cut down, nor let a root the sharp axe spare,

There was a wood, a witches' wood,
— All the trees therein were pale.
They bore no branches green and good,
— But as it were a gray nun's veil.

They talked and chattered in the wind
— From morning dawn to set of sun,
Like men and women that have sinned,
— Whose thousand evil tongues are one.

Their roots were like the hands of men,
— Grown hard and brown with clutching gold.
Their foliage women's tresses when
— The hair is withered, thin, and old.

There never did a sweet bird sing
— For happy love about his nest.

The builders still reject my corner stone,
That I low down in every soul have laid;
Their houses rise and fall; for there are none
That in the building seek its chosen aid;
Why will ye raise upon the shifting sands
Houses that every storm must battle down;
Temples and altars reared to Me with hands,
That rain and floods beneath their fury drown?
Clear, clear the ground of all that you have brought,
The corner stone shall now be laid anew;
That which the foolish builders set at naught
Shall now be laid where all that pass shall view;

There was a weasel lived in the sun
With all his family,
Till a keeper shot him with his gun
And hung him up on a tree,
Where he swings in the wind and rain,
In the sun and in the snow,
Without pleasure, without pain,
On the dead oak tree bough.

There was a crow who was no sleeper,
But a thief and a murderer
Till a very late hour; and this keeper
Made him one of the things that were,
To hang and flap in rain and wind,
In the sun and in the snow.
There are no more sins to be sinned
On the dead oak tree bough.

Thou springest from the ground, and may not I
From Him who speeds thy branches high and wide;
And from the scorching sun and stormy sky
May I not too with friendly shelter hide;
There is no shade like thine to shield the poor,
From the hot scorching words that meet the ear;
The snowy, frozen flakes they must endure,
Of those whose hearts have never shed a tear;
Yet He who shoots thy leafy fabric high,
Shall in my verse spread wide a tempering skreen,
And when oppressed with heat his sons pass by,

There was a time when Death and I
Came face to face together:
I was but young indeed to die,
And it was summer weather;
One happy year a wedded wife,
And I was slipping out of life.

You knelt beside me, and I heard,
As from some far-off distance,
A bitter cry that dimly stirred
My soul to make resistance.
You thought me dead; you called my name;
And back from Death itself I came.

But oh! that you had made no sign,
That I had heard no crying!
For now the yearning voice is mine,
And there is no replying: