So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. NEW-YEAR'S EVE. If you're waking call me early, call me early, mother dear, For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year. It is the last New-year that I shall ever see, Then you may lay me low i' the mould and think no more of me. To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind; Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a merry day; There's not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane : I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again : I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high: I long to see a flower so before the day I die. The building rook 'll caw from the windy tall elm-tree, And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea, And the swallow 'ill come back again with summer o'er the wave, Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine, When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade, I have been wild and wayward, but you'll forgive me now; Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild, If I can I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place; ; Goodnight, goodnight, when I have said goodnight for evermore, And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door; Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green : She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been. She'll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor : Let her take 'em: they are hers: I shall never garden more : But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rosebush that I set About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette. Goodnight, sweet mother: call me before the day is born. CONCLUSION. I THOUGHT to pass away before, and yet alive I am ; O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies, It seem'd so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun, O blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair! He taught me all the mercy, for he show'd me all the sin. I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat, All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call; For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear; With all my strength I pray'd for both, and so I felt resign'd, I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed, And then did something speak to me--I know not what was said ; But you were sleeping; and I said, 'It's not for them: it's mine.' So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret ; O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow; O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun— For ever and for ever with those just souls and true And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado? For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come- II. Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness, And utterly consumed with sharp distress, While all things else have rest from weariness? All things have rest: why should we toil alone, We only toil, who are the first of things, And make perpetual moan, Still from one sorrow to another thrown: Nor ever fold our wings, And cease from wanderings, Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm ; Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, 'There is no joy but calm !' Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? III. Lo! in the middle of the wood, The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. IV. Hateful is the dark-blue sky, Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, To war with evil? Is there any peace In ever climbing up the climbing wave? All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave In silence; ripen, fall and cease: Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease. V. How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, With half-shut eyes ever to seem To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height; To hear each other's whisper'd speech; And tender curving lines of creamy spray; To muse and brood and live again in memory, With those old faces of our infancy VI. Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, And dear the last embraces of our wives And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change: For surely now our household hearths are cold: Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange : And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. Or else the island princes over-bold Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings Before them of the ten years' war in Troy, And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things. Is there confusion in the little isle? |