At dawn, when England's childish tongue
Lisped happy truths, and men were young,
Her Chaucer, with a gay content
Hummed through the shining fields, scarce bent
By poet's foot, and, plucking, set,
All lusty, sunny, dewy-wet,
A dandelion in his verse,
Like the first gold in childhood's purse.

At noon, when harvest colors die
On the pale azure of the sky,
And dreams through dozing grasses creep
Of winds that are themselves asleep,
Rapt Shelley found the airy ghost
Of that bright flower the spring loves most,

" AT dawn, " he said, " I bid them all farewell,
To go where bugles call and rifles gleam. "
And with the restless thought asleep he fell,
And glided into dream.

A great hot plain from seAto mountain spread, —
Through it a level river slowly drawn:
He moved with a vast crowd, and at its head
Streamed banners like the dawn.

There came a blinding flash, a deafening roar,
And dissonant cries of triumph and dismay;
Blood trickled down the river's reedy shore.
And with the dead he lay.

Three score and ten, the life and age of man,
In holy David's eyes steemed but a span;
And half the time is lost and spent in sleep,
So only thirty-five for use we keep.
Our days of youth wise Solomon doth call
But vanity, 'Vanity,' he says,
'Is what befalls us in our childish days.'
Our days of age we take no pleasure in;
Our days of grief we wish had never been:
So age deducted, sleep, and youth, and sorrow,
Only one span is all the life we borrow.

1. At Christmas time so long ago,
The winds were blowing high and low;
A little green fir tree grew by the Inn,
A little fir tree straight and slim.

" Noel, Noel! " the angels sang,
" Noel, Noel! Goodwill to man, "
A little green fir tree grew by the Inn,
A little green fir tree straight and slim.

2. And, looking up, across the night
The fir tree saw the Star so bright.
The little fir tree wondered why
The star was moving in the sky.

" Noel, Noel! " etc.

3. The star shone over Bethlehem

At Brill on the hill
The wind blows shrill,
The cook no meat can dress;
At Stow-on-the-Wold
The wind blows cold,
I know no more than this.

AT BREAK of day I chanced to stray
Where Seine's fair waters glide,
When to raise my heart, young Bonypart
Came forward for to ride.
On a field of green, with gallant mien,
He formed his men in square,
And down the line, with looks divine,
He rode the Oul' Grey Mare!

" My sporting boys that's tall and straight,
Take counsel and be wise;
Attintion pay to what I say,
My counsels don't despise;
Let patience guide yous everywhere,
And from traitors now beware,
For none but min that's sound within
Can ride my Oul' Grey Mare! "

At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,
On board of the Cumberland sloop-of-war;
And at times from the fortress across the bay
The alarum of drums swept past,
Or a bugle-blast
From the camp on the shore.

Then far away to the south uprose
A little feather of snow-white smoke,
And we knew that the iron ship of our foes
Was steadily steering its course
To try the force
Of our ribs of oak.

Down upon us heavily runs,
Silent and sullen, the floating fort;
Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns,
And leaps the terrible death,

OR, THE GENTLE PIEMAN

PART I .

At a pleasant evening party I had taken down to supper
One whom I will call Elvira, and we talked of love and Tupper.

Mr. Tupper and the Poets, very lightly with them dealing,
For I've always been distinguished for a strong poetic feeling.

Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a motto,
And she listened while I read them, till her mother told her not to.

Then she whispered, " To the ballroom we had better, dear, be walking;

At a fragrance of plums, a blob, the sun appears on a mountain path
here and there a pheasant call rises
he begins repairing his house while there's nothing to do in spring
news from Kansai raises the price of rice
in the evening there was some pattering — now the moon among clouds
talking with a bush in between — the autumn, the loneliness
" My boss offered to be given my chrysanthemums, dammit! "
" I wouldn't let anybody see my daughter, absolutely not "

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd