I charm thy life,
From the weapons of strife,
From stone and from wood,
From fire and from flood,
From the serpent’s tooth,
And the beast of blood.
From sickness I charm thee,
And time shall not harm thee;
But earth, which is mine,
Its fruits shall deny thee;
And water shall hear me,
And know thee and flee thee:
And the winds shall not touch thee
When they pass by thee,
And the dews shall not wet thee
When they fall nigh thee.
And thou shalt seek death,
To release thee, in vain;
Thou shalt live in thy pain,

I had a fellow as my guest,
Not knowing he was such a pest,
And gave him just my usual fare;
He ate his fill of what was there,

And for desert my best things swallow'd,
Soon as his meal was o'er, what follow'd?
Led by the Deuce, to a neighbour he went,
And talk'd of my food to his heart's content:
"The soup might surely have had more spice,
The meat was ill-brown'd, and the wine wasn't nice."
A thousand curses alight on his head!
'Tis a critic, I vow! Let the dog be struck dead!

Once, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid,
He to the overbearing Boanerges
Jonson, uttered (if half of it were liquor,
Blessed be the vintage!)

Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold,
He had made sure of his very Cleopatra,
Drunk with enormous, salvation-con temning
Love for a tinker.

How, while he hid from Sir Thomas's keepers,
Crouched in a ditch and drenched by the midnight
Dews, he had listened to gipsy Juliet
Rail at the dawning.

How at Bankside, a boy drowning kittens

One Spring-morning bright and fair,

Roam'd a shepherdess and sang;
Young and beauteous, free from care,

Through the fields her clear notes rang:
So, Ia, Ia! le ralla.

Of his lambs some two or three

Thyrsis offer'd for a kiss;
First she eyed him roguishly,

Then for answer sang but this:
So, Ia, Ia! le ralla.

Ribbons did the next one offer,

And the third, his heart so true
But, as with the lambs, the scoffer

Laugh'd at heart and ribbons too,--
Still 'twas Ia! le ralla.

The friendly cow all red and white,
I love with all my heart:
She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart.

She wanders lowing here and there,
And yet she cannot stray,
All in the pleasant open air,
The pleasant light of day;

And blown by all the winds that pass
And wet with all the showers,
She walks among the meadow grass
And eats the meadow flowers.

We thought we ranked above the chance of ill.
Others might fall, not we, for we were wise--
Merchants in freedom. So, of our free-will
We let our servants drug our strength with lies.
The pleasure and the poison had its way
On us as on the meanest, till we learned
That he who lies will steal, who steals will slay.
Neither God's judgment nor man's heart was turned.

Yet there remains His Mercy--to be sought
Through wrath and peril till we cleanse the wrong
By that last right which our forefathers claimed

HERE in the country’s heart
Where the grass is green,
Life is the same sweet life
As it e’er hath been.

Trust in a God still lives,
And the bell at morn
Floats with a thought of God
O’er the rising corn.

God comes down in the rain,
And the crop grows tall—
This is the country faith,
And the best of all!

I

For long the cruel wish I knew
That your free heart should ache for me
While mine should bear no ache for you;
For, long--the cruel wish!--I knew
How men can feel, and craved to view
My triumph--fated not to be
For long! . . . The cruel wish I knew
That your free heart should ache for me!

II

At last one pays the penalty -
The woman--women always do.
My farce, I found, was tragedy
At last!--One pays the penalty
With interest when one, fancy-free,
Learns love, learns shame . . . Of sinners two

Ye mountains and glens of fair Scotland I'm with ye once again,
During my absence from ye my heart was like to break in twain;
Oh! How I longed to see you and the old folks at home,
And with my lovely Jeannie once more in the green woods to roam.

Now since I've returned safe home again
I will try and be content
With my lovely Jeannie at home,
And forget my banishment.

My Jeannie and me will get married,
And I will be to her a good man,
And we'll live happy together,
And do the best we can.

I hope my Jeannie and me

(Isaiah, lvii.15)

The Lord will happiness divine
On contrite hearts bestow;
Then tell me, gracious God, is mine
A contrite heart or no?

I hear, but seem to hear in vain,
Insensible as steel;
If aught is felt, 'tis only pain,
To find I cannot feel.

I sometimes think myself inclined
To love Thee if I could;
But often feel another mind,
Averse to all that's good.

My best desires are faint and few,
I fain would strive for more;
But when I cry, "My strength renew!"
Seem weaker than before.