heart

The sun shines fair on Tweedside, the river flowing bright,
Your heart is full of pleasure, your eyes are full of light,
Your cheeks are like the morning, your pearls are like the dew,
Or morning and her dew-drops are like your pearls and you.

Because you are a princess, a princess of the land,
You will not turn your lightsome eyes a moment where I stand,
A poor unnoticed poet, a-making of his rhymes;
But I have found a mistress, more fair a thousand times.

`Tis May, the elfish maiden, the daughter of the Spring,

Ardent in love and cold in charity,
Loud in the market, timid in debate:
Scornful of foe unbuckled in the dust
At whimper of a child compassionate,
A man's a sliding mood from hour to hour,
Rage, and a singing forest of bright birds,
Laughter with lovely friends,and loneliness,
Woe with her heavy horn of unspoke words.
What is he then this heir of heart and mind?
Is this the man with his conflicting moods,
Or is there in a deeper dwelling place
Some silly shaping thing that bides and broods?

A man toiled on a burning road,
Never resting.
Once he saw a fat, stupid ass
Grinning at him from a green place.
The man cried out in rage,
"Ah! Do not deride me, fool!
I know you --
All day stuffing your belly,
Burying your heart
In grass and tender sprouts:
It will not suffice you."
But the ass only grinned at him from the green place.

I envy every flower that blows
Along the meadow where she goes,
And every bird that sings to her,
And every breeze that brings to her
The fragrance of the rose.

I envy every poet's rhyme
That moves her heart at eventime,
And every tree that wears for her
Its brightest bloom, and bears for her
The fruitage of its prime.

I envy every Southern night
That paves her path with moonbeams white,
And silvers all the leaves for her,
And in their shadow weaves for her
A dream of dear delight.

Tell me no more of thy love, papeeha,
Wouldst thou recall to my heart, papeeha,
Dreams of delight that are gone,
When swift to my side came the feet of my lover
With stars of the dusk and the dawn?
I see the soft wings of the clouds on the river,
And jewelled with raindrops the mango-leaves quiver,
And tender boughs flower on the plain.....
But what is their beauty to me, papeeha,
Beauty of blossom and shower, papeeha,
That brings not my lover again?
Tell me no more of thy love, papeeha,

I meet thy pensive, moonlight face;
Thy thrilling voice I hear;
And former hours and scenes retrace,
Too fleeting, and too dear!

Then sighs and tears flow fast and free,
Though none is nigh to share;
And life has nought beside for me
So sweet as this despair.

There are crush'd hearts that will not break;
And mine, methinks, is one;
Or thus I should not weep and wake,
And thou to slumber gone.

I little thought it thus could be
In days more sad and fair

In the light of the silent stars that shine on the struggling sea,
In the weary cry of the wind and the whisper of flower and tree,
Under the breath of laughter, deep in the tide of tears,
I hear the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years.

The leaves of the winter wither and sink in the forest mould
To colour the flowers of April with purple and white and gold:
Light and scent and music die and are born again
In the heart of a grey-haired woman who wakes in a world of pain.

MY noble, lovely, little Peggy,
Let this my First Epistle beg ye,
At dawn of morn, and close of even,
To lift your heart and hands to Heaven.
In double duty say your prayer:
Our Father first, then Notre Pere.

And, dearest child, along the day,
In every thing you do and say,
Obey and please my lord and lady,
So God shall love and angels aid ye.

If to these precepts you attend,
No second letter need I send,
And so I rest your constant friend.

Listen, and when thy hand this paper presses,
O time-worn woman, think of her who blesses
What thy thin fingers touch, with her caresses.

O mother, for the weight of years that break thee!
O daughter, for slow time must yet awake thee,
And from the changes of my heart must make thee!

O fainting traveller, morn is gray in heaven.
Dost thou remember how the clouds were driven?
And are they calm about the fall of even?

Pause near the ending of thy long migration;

O THE Queen may keep her golden
Crown and sceptre of command!
I would give them both twice over
To be King of Babyland.
Sure, it is a wondrous country
Where the beanstalks grow apace,
And so very near the moon is
You could almost stroke her face.

And the dwellers in that country
Hold in such esteem their King,
They believe that if he chooses
He can do—just anything!

And, although his regal stature
May be only four-feet-ten,
Think him tallest, strongest, bravest,