Then I always was too grave,

Liked the saddest ballads sung, With that look, besides, we have In our faces who die young. I had died, dear, all the same, Life's long, joyous, jostling game Is too loud for my meek shame.

We are so unlike each other,

Thou and I, that none could guess We were children of one mother, But for mutual tenderness. Thou art rose-lined from the cold, And meant, verily, to hold Life's pure pleasures manifold.

I am pale as crocus grows

Close beside a rose-tree's root! Whosoe'er would reach the rose, Treads the crocus underfoot;

When I wear the shroud I made, Let the folds lie straight and neat, And the rosemary be spread, That if any friend should come, (To see thee, sweet!) all the room May be lifted out of gloom.

And, dear Bertha, let me keep

On my hand this little ring, Which at nights, when others sleep, I can still see glittering.

Let me wear it out of sight,
In the grave, where it will light
All the dark up, day and night.

COME to me, O my Mother! come to me,
Thine own son slowly dying far away!
Through the moist ways of the wide ocean, blown
By great invisible winds, come stately ships
To this calm bay for quiet anchorage;
They come, they rest awhile, they go away,
But, O my Mother, never comest thou!

As a peculiar darling? Lo, the flies
Hum o'er him! Lo, a feather from the crow
Falls in his parted lips! Lo, his dead eyes
See not the raven! Lo, the worm, the worm
Creeps from his festering corse! My God my
God!

O Lord, Thou doest well. I am content.
If Thou have need of him he shall not stay.
But as one calleth to a servant, saying
"At such a time be with me," so, O Lord,
Call him to Thee! O, bid him not in haste
Straight whence he standeth. Let him lay aside
The soiléd tools of labor. Let him wash

His hands of blood. Let him array himself
Meet for his Lord, pure from the sweat and fume
Of corporal travail ! Lord, if he must die,
Let him die here. O, take him where Thou gavest!
And even as once I held him in my womb

A leper with no power but his disease.

Why am I from thee, Mother, far from thee?
Far from the frost enchantment, and the woods
Jewelled from bough to bough? O home, my
home!

O river in the valley of my home,
With mazy-winding motion intricate,
Twisting thy deathless music underneath

LORD, I am weeping. As Thou wilt, O Lord,
Do with him as Thou wilt; but O my God,
Let him come back to die! Let not the fowls
O' the air defile the body of my child,
My own fair child, that when he was a babe,
I lift up in my arms and gave to Thee!
Let not his garment, Lord, be vilely parted,
Nor the fine linen which these hands have spun
Fall to the stranger's lot! Shall the wild bird,
That would have pilfered of the ox, this year
Disdain the pens and stalls? Shall her blind
young,

That on the fleck and moult of brutish beasts
Had been too happy, sleep in cloth of gold
Whereof each thread is to this beating heart

So, O Lord, let me hold him in my grave
Till the time come, and Thou, who settest when
The hinds shall calve, ordain a better birth;
And as I looked and saw my son, and wept
For joy, I look again and see my son,
And weep again for joy of him and Thee!

THE FAREWELL

SIDNEY DOBELL

OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE.

GONE, gone, sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisome insect stings,
Where the fever demon strews
Poison with the falling dews,
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air,

Gone, gone, sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hill and waters,
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gone, - sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
There no mother's eye is near them,
There no mother's ear can hear them;
Never, when the torturing lash
Seams their back with many a gash,
Shall a mother's kindness bless them,
Or a mother's arms caress them.

Gone, gone, sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

-

E'en so- but why the tale reveal

Of those whom, year by year unchanged, Brief absence joined anew, to feel,

Astounded, soul from soul estranged?

At dead of night their sails were filled,
And onward each rejoicing steered;
Ah! neither blame, for neither willed
Or wist what first with dawn appeared.

To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks!-in light, in darkness too!
Through winds and tides one compass guides:
To that and your own selves be true.

But O blithe breeze! and O great seas! Though ne'er that earliest parting past, On your wide plain they join again,

Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare;
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas,
At last, at last, unite them there.

-

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

AE FOND KISS BEFORE WE PART.
AE fond kiss and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, alas! forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee;
Warring sighs and groans I'll
wage thee.
Who shall say that fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy-
Naething could resist my Nancy :
But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love forever.

O MY Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June:
O my Luve's like the melodie

That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I :

And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a' the seas gang dry :

Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun; I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o' life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only Luve ! And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

ROBERT BURNS.

THE KISS, DEAR MAID.

THE kiss, dear maid! thy lip has left
Shall never part from mine,

Till happier hours restore the gift
Untainted back to thine.

Thy parting glance, which fondly beams, An equal love may see:

The tear that from thine eyelid streams Can weep no change in me.

I ask no pledge to make me blest
In gazing when alone;
Nor one memorial for a breast
Whose thoughts are all thine own.

Nor need I write to tell the tale
My pen were doubly weak:
O, what can idle words avail,
Unless the heart could speak?

I dare not think upon thy vow,

And all it promised me, Mary.
No ford regret must Norman know;
When bursts Clan-Alpine on the foe,
His heart must be like bended bow,
His foot like arrow free, Mary.

A time will come with feeling fraught!
For, if I fall in battle fought,
Thy hapless lover's dying thought

Shall be a thought on thee, Mary.
And if returned from conquered foes,
How blithely will the evening close,
How sweet the linnet sing repose,
To my young bride and me, Mary!

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

TO LUCASTA,

ON GOING TO THE WARS.

TELL me not, sweet, I am unkinde,
That from the nunnerie

Of thy chaste breast and quiet minde,
To warre and armes I flee.

True, a new mistresse now I chase, -
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith imbrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such

As you, too, should adore;

I could not love thee, deare, so much, Loved I not honor more.

RICHARD LOVELACE.

BLACK-EYED SUSAN.

ALL in the Downs the fleet was moored,
The streamers waving in the wind,
When black eyed Susan came aboard;

"O, where shall I my true-love find? Tell me, ye jovial sailors, tell me true If my sweet William sails among the crew."

William, who high upon the yard

Rocked with the billow to and fro, Soon as her well-known voice he heard

He sighed, and cast his eyes below: The cord slides swiftly through his glowing hands, And quick as lightning on the deck he stands.

So the sweet lark, high poised in air,

Shuts close his pinions to his breast If chance his mate's shrill call he hear, And drops at once into her nest :The noblest captain in the British fleet Might envy William's lip those kisses sweet.

"O Susan, Susan, lovely dear,

My vows shall ever true remain; Let me kiss off that falling tear;

We only part to meet again.

Change as ye list, ye winds; my heart shall be The faithful compass that still points to thee.

"Believe not what the landmen say

Who tempt with doubts thy constant mind: They'll tell thee sailors, when away,

In every port a mistress find:

Yes, yes, believe them when they tell thee so, For Thou art present wheresoe'er I go.