MY NAME it is Nell, right candid I tell,
And I live near a dell I ne’er will deny,
I had a large drake, the truth for to spake,
My grandfather left me when going to die;
He was merry and sound, and would weigh twenty pound,
The universe round would I rove for his sake.
Bad luck to the robber, be he drunken or sober,
That murdered Nell Flaherty’s beautiful drake.

His neck it was green, and rare to be seen,
He was fit for a queen of the highest degree.

See, he sitteth on his mat
Sitteth there upright,
With the grace with which he sat
While he saw the light.

Where is now the sturdy gripe,--
Where the breath sedate,
That so lately whiffed the pipe
Toward the Spirit great?

Where the bright and falcon eye,
That the reindeer's tread
On the waving grass could spy,
Thick with dewdrops spread?

Where the limbs that used to dart
Swifter through the snow
Than the twenty-membered hart,
Than the mountain roe?

Where the arm that sturdily

As once I rambled in the woods
I chanced to spy amid the brake
A huntsman ride his way beside
A fair and passing tranquil lake;
Though velvet bucks sped here and there,
He let them scamper through the green--
Not one smote he, but lustily
He blew his horn--what could it mean?

As on I strolled beside that lake,
A pretty maid I chanced to see
Fishing away for finny prey,
Yet not a single one caught she;
All round her boat the fishes leapt
And gambolled to their hearts' content,
Yet never a thing did the maid but sing--

I, WITH whose colours Myra dress'd her head,
   I, that ware posies of her own hand-making,
I, that mine own name in the chimneys read
   By Myra finely wrought ere I was waking:
Must I look on, in hope time coming may
With change bring back my turn again to play?

I, that on Sunday at the church-stile found
   A garland sweet with true-love-knots in flowers,
Which I to wear about mine arms was bound
   That each of us might know that all was ours:

The deep parts of my life pour onward,
as if the river shores were opening out.
It seems that things are more like me now,
That I can see farther into paintings.
I feel closer to what language can't reach.
With my senses, as with birds, I climb
into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
in the ponds broken off from the sky
my falling sinks, as if standing on fishes.

The kind-hearted angler was sadly pursuing
His calling unhallowed of choking the fishes;
He bitterly wept, for of course he was doing
An action most strongly opposed to his wishes!

His vertabra shook as he musingly planned
How kindly to threadle the worm he'd begun--it
Was plain had the reptile possessed a right hand
The penitent angler would gladly have wrung it!

He cast in his float filled with tearful emotion
And murmured "How fearful, how terrible this is!"
And just at that moment, amid some commotion,

When the moon was full they came to the water.
some with pitchforks, some with rakes,
some with sieves and ladles,
and one with a silver cup.

And they fished til a traveler passed them and said,
"Fools,
to catch the moon you must let your women
spread their hair on the water --
even the wily moon will leap to that bobbing
net of shimmering threads,
gasp and flop till its silver scales
lie black and still at your feet."

And they fished with the hair of their women
till a traveler passed them and said,
"Fools,

Thousand minstrels woke within me,
"Our music's in the hills; "—
Gayest pictures rose to win me,
Leopard-colored rills.
Up!—If thou knew'st who calls
To twilight parks of beech and pine,
High over the river intervals,
Above the ploughman's highest line,
Over the owner's farthest walls;—
Up!—where the airy citadel
O'erlooks the purging landscape's swell.
Let not unto the stones the day
Her lily and rose, her sea and land display;
Read the celestial sign!
Lo! the South answers to the North;
Bookworm, break this sloth urbane;

When I die I promise to haunt
all my surviving enemies,
may they be few if any at that point,
because I hope to outlive them all.
But if any of them are left
I'll keep them awake at night with weird noises.
I'll whisper words in their ears while they sleep
to encourage feelings of low self-esteem when they awake.

Actually, I'll never let them sleep.
I'll kick them out of bed
just as they're falling
into deep slumber.

Or maybe I'll just let them be.
Enemies are such a responsibility,
and eat up so much time.

There is a bird in the poplars!
It is the sun!
The leaves are little yellow fish
swimming in the river.
The bird skims above them,
day is on his wings.
Phoebus!
It is he that is making
the great gleam among the poplars!
It is his singing
outshines the noise
of leaves clashing in the wind.