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Now

The Past can be no more —
Whose misemploying I deplore:
The Future is to me
An absolute uncertainty:
The Now, which will not with me stay,
Within a second flies away.

I heard God often say,
Now, of salvation is the day, —
But turn'd from heaven my view,
I still had something else to do;
Till God a dream instructive sent,
To warn me timely to repent.

Methought Death, with his dart,
Had mortally transfix'd my heart;
And devils round about,
To seize my spirit flying out,
Cried — " Now, of which you took no care,

The Sally from Coventry

“P ASSION o' me!” cried Sir Richard Tyrone,
Spurning the sparks from the broad paving-stone,
“Better turn nurse and rock children to sleep,
Than yield to a rebel old Coventry Keep.
No, by my halidom, no one shall say,
Sir Richard Tyrone gave a city away!”

Passion o' me! how he pulled at his beard!
Fretting and chafing if any one sneered,
Clapping his breastplate and shaking his fist,
Giving his grizzly moustachios a twist,
Running the protocol through with his steel,
Grinding the letter to mud with his heel.

Leavetaking

Pass , thou wild light,
Wild light on peaks that so
Grieve to let go
— The day.
Lovely thy tarrying, lovely too is night:
— Pass thou away.

Pass, thou wild heart,
Wild heart of youth that still
Hast half a will
— To stay.
I grow too old a comrade, let us part:
— Pass thou away.

Farewell Talk with Saiko by a Rainy Window

A parting meal, low lamp — stay and enjoy it a bit longer;
new mud on the road home — better wait till it dries.
On peaks across the river, clouds only now dispersing;
strings and songs in the house next door just beginning to fade in the night.
Intercalary month this spring — my guest lingers on,
though last night's rain heartlessly scattered the cherry flowers.
From here you go to Mino — not a long way away,
though, growing old, I know how hard it is to meet now and then.

The Boy and the Parrot

" PARROT , if I had your wings
I should do so many things:
The first thing I should like to do
If I had little wings like you,
I should fly to Uncle Bartle,
Don't you think 'twould make him startle,
If he saw me when I came,
Flapping at the window frame
Exactly like the parrot of fame?"

All this the wise old parrot heard,
The parrot was an ancient bird,
And paused and pondered every word;
First, therefore, he began to cough,
Then said, " It is a great way off,
A great way off, my dear"; and then

The Preacher's Mistake

THE PARISH PRIEST
Of austerity,
Climbed up in a high church steeple
To be nearer God,
So that he might hand
His word down to His people.

When the sun was high,
When the sun was low,
The good man sat unheeding
Sublunary things.
From transcendency
Was he forever reading.

And now and again
When he heard the creak
Of the weather vane a-turning,
He closed his eyes
And said, “Of a truth
From God I now am learning.”

And in sermon script
He daily wrote
What he thought was sent from heaven,
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