Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

While airs impregnated with incense play
Around her, fanning light her streamers gay;
So thou, with sails how swift! hast reached the shore,
"Where tempests never beat nor billows roar,"
And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide
Of life long since has anchored by thy side.
But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest,
Always from port withheld, always distressed,-
Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-tossed,
Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost;
And day by day some current's thwarting force
Sets me more distant from a prosperous course.
Yet oh, the thought that thou art safe, and he!
That thought is joy, arrive what may to me.
My boast is not that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise,—
The son of parents passed into the skies!

And now, farewell!-Time, unrevoked, has run
His wonted course; yet what I wished is done.
By contemplation's help, not sought in vain,
I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again:
To have renewed the joys that once were mine,
Without the sin of violating thine;

And, while the wings of Fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic show of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft,-

Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left.
William Cowper [1731-1800]

THE CROWING OF THE RED COCK

ACROSS the Eastern sky has glowed

The flicker of a blood-red dawn,

Once more the clarion cock has crowed,

Once more the sword of Christ is drawn.

A million burning rooftrees light

The world-wide path of Israel's flight,

[graphic]
[blocks in formation]

's Fatherland?

is sore bestead; bruised and banned, pruisca od noto lay his head.

meat is tears, wo

thousand years.

wakes in man the beast,
his kind.

, the greed of priest,
of kings, combined

from earth again;

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

roll of Christian guilt

sires and kin is known,
tears, the life-blood spilt,
of ages shown, aming!
scan the stain remove

tian law and Christian love?
novaal DrA

the book; not now, not here,
eous tale of sin narrate,

g in the martyr's ear

e might nurse revengeful hate,
might turn in wrath sublime,
od for blood and crime for c crime.
Ju apbnuo 1

? Not he, who faces death,
singly against worlds has fought,
hat? A name he may not breathe,
liberty of prayer and thought./
ngry sword he will not whet,

obler task is to forget.qe ni th

abdol Emma Lazarus [1849-1887]

bol) indianob blow ad li

THE WORLD'S JUSTICEAT

[ocr errors]

Q for Tony or br IF the sudden tidings came qu2

That on some far, foreign coast, Buried ages long from fame,

Of that hoary race who dwelt
By the golden Nile divine,

Spake the Pharaoh's tongue and knelt

At the moon-crowned Isis' shrineHow at reverend Egypt's feet, Pilgrims from all lands would meet!

If the sudden news were known,
That anigh the desert-place
Where once blossomed Babylon,
Scions of a mighty race
Still survived, of giant build,

Huntsmen, warriors, priest and sage,
Whose ancestral fame had filled,
Trumpet-tongued, the earlier age,
How at old Assyria's feet

Pilgrims from all lands would meet!

Yet when Egypt's self was young,
And Assyria's bloom unworn,

Ere the mythic Homer sung,

Ere the gods of Greece were born,
Lived the nation of one God,

Priests of freedom, sons of Shem,
Never quelled by yoke or rod,
Founders of Jerusalem—
Is there one abides to-day,
Seeker of dead cities, say!

Answer, now as then, they are;

Scattered broadcast o'er the lands,

Knit in spirit nigh and far,

With indissoluble bands.

Half the world adores their God,

They the living law proclaim,

And their guerdon is—the rod,

Stripes and scourgings, death and shame. Still on Israel's head forlorn,

Every nation heaps its scorn.

Emma Lazarus [1849-1887]

An Italian Song

3059

DOVER CLIFFS

white cliffs, that calm above the flood
eir shadowing heads, and at their feet
the surge that has for ages beat,
hy a lonely wanderer has stood;
lst the lifted murmur met his ear
the distant billows the still eve

ow, has thought of all his heart must leave
ow; of the friends he loved most dear;
scenes from which he wept to part.
ike me, he knew how fruitless all
ughts that would full fain the past recall,
uld he quell the risings of his heart,
ve the wild winds and unhearing tide,—
rld his country, and his God his guide.
William Lisle Bowles [1762-1850]

AN ITALIAN SONG

R is my little native vale:

The ringdove builds and murmurs there;

e by my cot she tells her tale

To every passing villager.

The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,
And shells his nuts at liberty.

range groves and myrtle bowers,
That breathe a gale of fragrance round,
arm the fairy-footed hours

With my loved lute's romantic sound;

Or crowns of living laurel weave
For those that win the race at eve.

shepherd's horn at break of day, The ballet danced in twilight glade, › canzonet and roundelay

Sung in the silent greenwood shade;

These simple joys, that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale!

Samuel Rogers [1763-1855]

THE EXILE'S SONG

Oн, why left I my hame?
Why did I cross the deep?
Oh, why left I the land
Where my forefathers sleep?
I sigh for Scotia's shore,
And I gaze across the sea,
But I canna get a blink
O' my ain countrie!

The palm-tree waveth high,
And fair the myrtle springs;
And to the Indian maid

The bulbul sweetly sings;

But I dinna see the broom

Wi' its tassels on the lea, Nor hear the lintie's sang O' my ain countrie!

Oh, here no Sabbath bell
Awakes the Sabbath morn,
Nor song of reapers heard
Amang the yellow corn:
For the tyrant's voice is here,
And the wail o' slaverie;
But the sun of freedom shines
In my ain countrie!

There's a hope for every woe,
And a balm for every pain,
But the first joys o' our heart
Come never back again..
There's a track upon the deep,

And a path across the sea;
But the weary ne'er return
To their ain countrie!

Robert Gilfillan [1798-1850]

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »