Through groves sequester'd, dark, and still,
Low vales, and mossy cells among,
In silent paths, the nameless rill,
With liquid murmurs, steals along:

A while it plays with circling sweep,
And lingering winds its native plain,
Then pours impetuous down the steep,
And mingles with the boundless main.

O! let my years thus devious glide,
Through silent scenes obscurely calm;
Nor Wealth nor Strife pollute the tide,
Nor Honour's sanguinary palm.

When Labour tires, and Pleasure palls,
Still let the stream untroubled lie:

Dawn comes edged; sparrows wrangle;
The cardinal blossoms bleed;
Along the sucking marshes dangle
Blue spikes of the pickerel weed.

Jewel weed in the ditches
Washes silver; Spider Spouse
Delicately yanks and hitches
Glitter to her dingy house.

Spotted orange butterflies
Tipple; and the dipping bees
Loot the thistle: and their thighs
Glow with brilliant burglaries.

Wasps suck out their last, unravel
Cell by cell: and I know
The melancholy road to travel
Strains beneath my feet … I go.

He lost his money first of all
—And losing that is half the story—
And later on he tried a fall
With Fate, in things less transitory.

He lost his heart—and found it dead—
(His one and only true discovery),
And after that he lost his head,
And lost his chances of recovery.

He lost his honour bit by bit
Until the thing was out of question.
He worried so at losing it,
He lost his sleep and his digestion.

He lost his temper—and for good—
The remnants of his reputation,
His taste in wine, his choice of food,

In woods so long time bare.
Cuckoo!
Up and in the wood, I know not where
Two notes fall.
Yet I do not envy him at all
His phantasy.
Cuckoo!
I too,
Somewhere,
I have sung as merrily as he
Who can dare,
Small and careless lover, so to laugh at care,
And who
Can call
Cuckoo!
In woods of winter weary,
In scented woods, of winter weary, call
Cuckoo!
In woods so long time bare.

In a smooth train thy mystick figures flow,
And swiftest gales of eastern winds out-go.
Thy pen our words paints with the nicest care,
Before the fleeting voice dissolves in air:
Flying it draws the image of the mind,
Nor one idea wandring leaves behind.
Faithful as echo thy rare art is found,
Preserves the sense as it returns the sound.

That Church they founded on the Word of God,
Thy Word is Truth, their single, only creed;
Obeying this they feared not princes' nod,
And this from prelates' iron yoke had freed.
As the One Spirit did its words reveal,
They strove its holy precepts to obey;
From this in Church and State was no appeal,
For none God's just commandments could gainsay.
Within the family, and in the school,
That Word was morn and eve devoutly read;
Ye, their descendants still observe the rule,
Not by the letter, but the Spirit led;
So shall our social fabric stand secure,

When he who owns a house has come to thee,
And begs you move, for he must enter in;
Dost thou not pay, when asked, his little fee,
And for thy journeying hence right quick begin?
But I, when I have come: who own no land,
Nor houses built of wood, or wrought of stone;
Why dost thou waiting and uncertain stand,
As if the house I let was not my own?
“I have been here so long it seems like mine,”
Thou sayst; “but still the more ought thou to leave;”
“My children here were born; can I resign”
“My all, and thou a stranger too?” “believe”

When hides the sun behind the hills,
And shortest days are seen;
How beautiful are Christmas flowers,
Or wreaths of Christmas green!

All else has faded from my mind,
That dark December day;
Save that full wagon load of flowers,
That stood beside the way.

Stock-Gilly plants in bloom, for sale,
Sprinkled with falling snow;
That made the chill and wintry scene
With warmest colors glow.

And many a home those flowers made bright,
When earth was brown and sere,
Or buried deep beneath the snows,
And naught around to cheer.

When ancient warriors Hades made its own,
Their sacred image Greece was wont to bear
To Phocis' lustrous fanes as Pytho there,
Rock-bound and lightning-girdled, ruled alone.

Whereat their Shades, when night in glory shone
On desert gulfs and isles all brightly fair,
Heard, from the headlands' height in radiant air,
Famed Salamis above their tombs intone.

But I, when old, in lengthening grief shall die,
And then nailed down in narrow coffin lie,
The earth's and tapers' cost, with priest's fee, paid;

And yet, in many a dream my soul aspires

At daybreak, when the falcon claps his wings,
No whit for grief, but noble heart and high
With loud glad noise he stirs himself and springs,
And takes his meat and toward his lure draws nigh;
Such good I wish you! Yea, and heartily
I am fired with hope of true love's meed to get;
Know that Love writes it in his book; for why,
This is the end for which we twain are met.

Mine own heart's lady with no gainsayings
You shall be always wholly till I die;
And in my right against all bitter things
Sweet laurel with fresh rose its force shall try;