So I have sunk my roots in earth
Since that my pretty boys had birth;
And fear no more the grave and gloom,
I, with the centuries to come.

As the tree blossoms so bloom I,
Flinging wild branches to the sky;
Renew each year my leafy suit,
Strike with the years a deeper root.

Shelter a thousand birds to be,
A thousand herds give praise to me;
And in my kind and grateful shade
How many a weary head be laid.

I clothe myself without a stain.
In me a child is born again,
A child that looks with innocent eyes

I saw the Death, and she was seating
By quiet entrance at my own home,
I saw the doors were opened in my tomb,
And there, and there my hope was a-flitting
I'll die, and traces of my past
In days of future will be never sighted,
Look of my eyes will never be delighted
By dear look, in my existence last.

Farewell the somber world, where, precipice above,
My gloomy road was a-streaming,
Where life for me was never cheering,
Where I was loving, having not to love!
The dazzling heavens' azure curtain,

Down through the tomb's inward arch
He has shouldered out into Limbo
to gather them, dazed, from dreamless slumber:
the merciful dead, the prophets,
the innocents just His own age and those
unnumbered others waiting here
unaware, in an endless void He is ending
now, stooping to tug at their hands,
to pull them from their sarcophagi,
dazzled, almost unwilling. Didmas,
neighbor in death, Golgotha dust
still streaked on the dried sweat of his body
no one had washed and anointed, is here,
for sequence is not known in Limbo;

I crave, dear Lord,
No boundless hoard
Of gold and gear,
Nor jewels fine,
Nor lands, nor kine,
Nor treasure-heaps of anything.-
Let but a little hut be mine
Where at the hearthstore I may hear
The cricket sing,
And have the shine
Of one glad woman's eyes to make,
For my poor sake,
Our simple home a place divine;-
Just the wee cot-the cricket's chirr-
Love, and the smiling face of her.

I pray not for
Great riches, nor
For vast estates, and castle-halls,-
Give me to hear the bare footfalls

If, on a quiet sea, toward heaven we calmly sail,
With grateful hearts, O God, to Thee,
We’ll own the favoring gale,
With grateful hearts, O God, to Thee,
We’ll own the favoring gale.

But should the surges rise, and rest delay to come,
Blest be the tempest, kind the storm,
Which drives us nearer home,
Blest be the tempest, kind the storm,
Which drives us nearer home.

Soon shall our doubts and fears all yield to Thy control;
Thy tender mercies shall illume
The midnight of the soul,
Thy tender mercies shall illume

I

If thou'lt be mine, the treasures of air,
Of earth, and sea, shall lie at thy feet;
Whatever in Fancy's eye looks fair,
Or in Hope's sweet music sounds most sweet,
Shall be ours -- if thou wilt be mine, love!

II

Bright flowers shall bloom wherever we rove,
A voice divine shall talk in each stream;
The stars shall look like world of love,
And this earth be all one beautiful dream
In our eyes -- if thou wilt be mine, love!

III

A village Chorus is supposed to be assembled, and about to
commence its festive procession.

[Written for the birthday of the Duchess Louisa of Weimar.]

CHORUS.

THE festal day hail ye

With garlands of pleasure,

And dances' soft measure,
With rapture commingled
And sweet choral song.

DAMON.

Oh, how I yearn from out the crowd to flee!
What joy a secret glade would give to me!
Amid the throng, the turmoil here,
Confined the plain, the breezes e'en appear.

CHORUS.

Now order it truly,

I

I'd mourn the hopes that leave me,
If thy smiles had left me too;
I'd weep when friends deceive me,
If thou wert, like them, untrue.
But while I've thee before me,
With heart so warm and eyes so bright,
No clouds can linger o'er me,
That smile turns them all to light.

II

First, the self. Then, the observing self.
The self that acts and the self that watches. This
The starting point, the place where the mind begins,
Whether the mind of an individual or
The mind of a species. When I was a boy
I struggled to understand. For if I know
The self that watches, another watching self
Must see the watcher, then another watching that,
Another and another, and where does it end?
So my mother sent me to the barber shop,
My first time, to get my hair "cut for a part"
(Instead of the dutch boy she'd always given me),

I wonder where my papa is,
Oh, where could he have gone,
I wonder why he does not come
And see his Lilly Long.
He would come and sit by me
When the fever burnt my brow,
I wonder where my papa is,
For he comes not near me now.
II
I hear no more the foot pace
In the hall by my door,
Where he would gently, gently tread
Upon the oaken floor.
His place is vacant by the hearth,
There stands his easy chair;
I hear no more his loving voice
Raising the evening prayer.
III
The last time I saw my papa dear