Had I a power, Lady, to my will,
You should not want Hand Writings. I would fill
Your leaves with Autographs—resplendent names
Of Knights and Squires of old, and courtly Dames,
Kings, Emperors, Popes. Next under these should stand
The hands of famous Lawyers—a grave band—
Who in their Courts of Law or Equity
Have best upheld Freedom and Property.
These should moot cases in your book, and vie
To show their reading and their Serjeantry.
But I have none of these; nor can I send
The notes by Bullen to her Tyrant penn'd

High on the Thracian hills, half hid in the billows of clover,
Thyme, and the asphodel blooms, and lulled by Pactolian streamlet,
She of Miletus lay, and beside her an aged satyr
Scratched his ear with his hoof, and playfully mumbled his chestnuts

Vainly the Maenid and the Bassarid gamboled about her,
The free-eyed Bacchante sang and Pan—the renowned, the accomplished—Executed his difficult solo. In vain were their gambols and dances;
High o'er the Thracian hills rose the voice of the shepherdess, wailing:

To luve unluvit it is ane pane;
For scho that is my soverane,
Sum wantoun man so he hes set hir,
That I can get no lufe agane,
Bot brekis my hairt, & nocht the bettir.

Quhen that I went with that sweit may,
To dance, to sing, to sport and pley,
And oft tymes in my armis plet hir;
I do now murne both nycht & day,
And brekis my hart, & nocht the bettir.

Quhair I wes wont to se hir go
Rycht trymly passand to and fro,
With cumly smylis quhen that I met hir;
And now I leif in pane & wo,

Friend, now for ever gone;
Soul that was dear to me;
No more to see a fretting sun
Set o'er an angry sea.

Lying now, silent, low,
The long night covers thee;
As I await north winds do blow
Musk of thy grave to me.

No more to quote Mynyddog, or the wise
Khayyam, around the cup. . . .
Asleep beneath the Odes of Arvon skies,
The wine all frozen up. . .

Shouldering through this strife,
I know not thou from me;
I seem to live a dual life—
One half are thoughts of thee.

No more!—It seems so futile to make friends,

It's a comfort to me in life's battle,
—When the conflict seems all going wrong,
When I seem to lose every ambition
—And the current of life grows too strong,
To think that the dusk ends the warfare,
—That the worry is done for the night;
And the little child there, at the window,
—Believes that his daddy's all right.

In the heat of the day and the hurry,
—I'm prompted so often to pause,
While my mind strays away from the striving,
—Away from the noise and applause.
The cheers may be meant for some other;
—Perhaps I have lost in the fight;

It's great to be alive, and be
—A part of all that's going on;
To live and work and feel and see
—Life lived each day from early dawn;
To rise and with the morning light
—Go forth until the hours grow late,
Then joyously return at night
—And rest from honest toil—it's great!

It's great to be a living part
—Of all the surging world alive,
And lend a hand in field and mart,
—A worker in this human hive;
To live and earn and dare to do,
—Nor ever shirk or deviate
From course or purpose we pursue!
—Until the goal is won—it's great!

There grew a fragrant rose-tree where the brook flows,
With two little tender buds, and one full rose;
When the sun went down to his bed in the west,
The little buds leaned on the rose-mother's breast,
While the bright-eyed stars their long watch kept,
And the flowers of the valley in their green cradles slept;
Then silently in odors they communed with each other,
The two little buds on the bosom of their mother.
“O sister,” said the little one, as she gazed at the sky,
“I wish that the Dew Elves, as they wander lightly by,

Queen of the upper air, crown'd Artemis!
Quick-girdled huntress and moon-diadem'd,
O patroness of all our keen endeavour,
Lady that life from life dost sever,
Hear thou from haunt Eubœan!
Life out of life, seed unto seed thou givest,
Thou potent in the Stygian shades infernal
As in the blue supernal;
Potent thou too in the green habitations
Of teeming Earth, whose nations
Adore in thee their holiest aspirations,
See their wholesome, see their pure
Stroke and striving imaged sure
In thine implacable, chaste, thy virgin meditations.

This is the reed the dead musician dropped,
With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden;
The prompt allegro of its music stopped,
Its melodies unbidden

But who shall finish the unfinished strain,
Or wake the instrument to awe and wonder,
And bid the slender barrel breathe again,
An organ-pipe of thunder!

His pen! what humbler memories cling about
Its golden curves! what shapes and laughing graces
Slipped from its point, when his full heart went out
In smiles and courtly phrases?

The truth, half jesting, half in earnest flung;

Deep in the mountains,
I gaze up
at the moon
shining in the clear—
leaves on the trees
abandoned
to the enticing