English

‘How brent 's your brow, my Lady Elspat!
How golden yallow is your hair!
Of all the maids of fair Scotland,
There 's nane like Lady Elspat fair.’

‘Perform your vows, Sweet William,’ she says,
‘The vows which ye ha made to me,
An at the back o my mother's castle
This night I 'll surely meet wi thee.’

But wae be to her brother's page,
Who heard the words this twa did say!
He 's told them to her lady mother,
Who wrought Sweet William mieckle wae.

For she has taen him Sweet William,

The hour-hand and the minute-hand upon a polished dial
A meeting planned at twelve o'clock to walk and talk awhile.
The Hour-hand with the Minute-hand could never keep apace.
“The speed at which you move,” he said, “is really a disgrace!”

Then laughed the Minute-hand and sang, “The way that I must go
Is marked with milestones all along, and there are twelve, you know.
And I must call at each of these before my journey's done,
While you are creeping like a snail from twelve o'clock to one.

High are the mountains and low is the plain,
Where Billy the Kid comes a-ridin' again.

Old Juánico sees him—black on the moon,
And two haggard horsemen come following soon.

Now topping the rim-rock, now hid in a vale,
Four ghostly white riders press close on his trail.

No thudding of hoofbeats, no sound anywhere,
But nine silent dead men are racing the air.

Beyond the old courthouse and following fast,
The tenth pale pursuer springs out of the past.

Old Juánico sees them—no other eye can,

Here shall remain all tears for lovely things
—And here enshrined the longing of great hearts,
—Caught on a lyre whence waking wonder starts,
To mount afar upon immortal wings;
Here shall be treasured tender wonderings,
—The faintest whisper that the soul imparts,
—All silent secrets and all gracious arts,
Where nature murmurs of her hidden springs.

O magic of a song! here loveliness
—May sleep unhindered of life's mortal toll,
——And noble things stand towering o'er the tide;
Here mid the years, untouched by time or stress,

Here I am and forth I must,
And in Jesus Criste is all my trust.
No wicked thing do me no dere,
Nother here nor elleswhere.
The Father with me, the Sone with me,
The Holy Gost, and the Trinité,
Be betwixt my gostly enemé and me.
In the name of the Father and the Son
And the Holy Gost, Amen.

Helen, had I known yesterday
That you could discharge the ache
Out of the wound,
Had I known yesterday you could take
The turgid electric ache away,
Drink it up in the ground
Of your soft white body, as lightning
Is drunk from an agonised sky by the earth,
I should have hated you, Helen.

But since my limbs gushed full of fire,
Since from out of my blood and bone
Poured a heavy flame
To you, earth of my atmosphere, stone
Of my steel, lovely white flint of desire,
You have no name.

He stood in the pulpit,
So straight and so tall;
Expounding the truth,
He seemed to know all.
The light on his face
Was bright as the sun;
It was easy to see
What the Saviour had done.
The chapel was silent,
Except for his voice,
But as he proceeded,
Many hearts did rejoice.
For the Master was speaking,
Through His servant that day;
And at the conclusion,
They rejoiced on their way.

He has solved it—Life's wonderful problem,
The deepest, the strongest, the last;
And into the school of the angels
With the answer forever has passed.

How strange that, in spite of our questions,
He maketh no answer, nor tells
Why so soon were earth's honoring laurels
Displaced by God's own immortelles.

How strange he should sleep so profoundly,
So young, so unworn by the strife!
While beside him, brimful of Hope's nectar,
Untouched stands the goblet of life.

Men slumber like that when the evening

The cuckoo is singing;
Ye gods, be sure to listen.

The handful here, that once was Mary's earth,
Held, while it breathed, so beautiful a soul,
That, when she died, all recognized her birth,
And had their sorrow in serene control.

“Not here! not here!” to every mourner's heart
The wintry wind seemed whispering round her bier;
And when the tomb-door opened, with a start
We heard it echoed from within,—“Not here!”

Shouldst thou, sad pilgrim, who mayst hither pass,
Note in these flowers a delicater hue,
Should spring come earlier to this hallowed grass,