journey

IT was a dismal and a fearful night:
Scarce could the Morn drive on th' unwilling Light,
When Sleep, Death's image, left my troubled breast
   By something liker Death possest.
My eyes with tears did uncommanded flow,
   And on my soul hung the dull weight
   Of some intolerable fate.
What bell was that? Ah me! too much I know!

My sweet companion and my gentle peer,
Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here,
Thy end for ever and my life to moan?
   O, thou hast left me all alone!

Weep not because this childe hath dyed so yong,
But weepe because yourselves have livde so long:
Age is not fild by growth of time, for then
What old man lives to see th' estate of men?
Who sees the age of grande Methusalem?
Ten years make us as old as hundreds him.
Ripenesse is from ourselves: and then wee dye
When nature hath obteynde maturity.
Summer and winter fruits there bee, and all
Not at one time, but being ripe, must fall.
Death did not erre: your mourners are beguilde;

Don't be downcast, soon the night will come,
When we can see the cool moon laughing in secret
Over the faint countryside,
And we rest, hand in hand.


Don't be downcast, the time will soon come
When we can have rest. Our small crosses will stand
On the bright edge of the road together,
And rain fall, and snow fall,
And the winds come and go.


Translated by James Wright


Submitted by Holt

My mother's maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometime a song of the field mouse,
That, for because her livelood was but thin,

Would needs go seek her townish sister's house.
She thought herself endurèd too much pain;
The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse

That when the furrows swimmèd with the rain,
She must lie cold and wet in sorry plight;
And worse than that, bare meat there did remain

To comfort her when she her house had dight;

I had a friend, a breezy friend
I liked an awful lot;
And in his company no end
Of happiness I got.
We clicked in temper, taste and mood,
We gypsied side by side,--
And then, as no pal ever should,
He upped and died.

A score of years have since gone by,
Yet I bemoan him still;
He used to call me Bob and I
Was wont to call him Bill.
Oh how I wish that he were here,
How we would bravely walk
On heather hills to tavern cheer,
And talk and talk!

Awake, of Muse, the echoes of a day
Long past, the ghosts of mem'ries manifold --
Youth's memories that once were green and gold
But now, alas, are grim and ashen grey.
The drowsy schoolboy wakened up from sleep,
First stays his system with substantial food,
Then off for school with tasks half understood,
Alas, alas, that cribs should be so cheap!

The journey down to town -- 'twere long to tell
The storm and riot of the rabble rout;
The wild Walpurgis revel in and out

I came up to-night to the station, the tramp had been longish and cold,
My swag ain't too heavy to carry, but then I begin to get old.
I came through this way to the diggings -- how long will that be ago now?
Thirty years! how the country has altered, and miles of it under the plough,
And Jack was my mate on the journey -- we both run away from the sea;
He's got on in the world and I haven't, and now he looks sideways on me.

We were mates, and that didn't mean jokers who meets for a year or a day,

Oh! Mr. Best, you're very bad
And all the world shall know it;
Your base behaviour shall be sung
By me, a tunefull Poet.--
You used to go to Harrowgate
Each summer as it came,
And why I pray should you refuse
To go this year the same?--

The way's as plain, the road's as smooth,
The Posting not increased;
You're scarcely stouter than you were,
Not younger Sir at least.--

If e'er the waters were of use
Why now their use forego?
You may not live another year,

PALE GODDESS of the witching hour;
Blest Contemplation's placid friend;
Oft in my solitary bow'r,
I mark thy lucid beam
From thy crystal car descend,
Whitening the spangled heath, and limpid sapphire stream.

And oft, amidst the shades of night
I court thy undulating light;
When Fairies dance around the verdant ring,
Or frisk beside the bubbling spring,
When the thoughtless SHEPHERD'S song
Echoes thro' the silent air,
As he pens his fleecy care,
Or plods with saunt'ring gait, the dewy meads along.

America, from a grain
of maize you grew
to crown
with spacious lands
the ocean foam.
A grain of maize was your geography.
From the grain
a green lance rose,
was covered with gold,
to grace the heights
of Peru with its yellow tassels.

But, poet, let
history rest in its shroud;
praise with your lyre
the grain in its granaries:
sing to the simple maize in the kitchen.

First, a fine beard
fluttered in the field
above the tender teeth
of the young ear.