My life ain't nothin'
But a lot o' Gawd-knows-what.
I say my life ain't nothin'
But a lot o' Gawd-knows-what.
Just one thing after 'nother
Added to de trouble that I got.

When I got you I
Thought I had an angel-chile.
When I got you
Thought I had an angel-chile.
You turned out to be a devil
That mighty nigh drove me wild!

Tell me, tell me,
What makes love such an ache and pain?
Tell me what makes
Love such an ache and pain?
It takes you and it breaks you—
But you got to love again.

We see them not—we cannot hear
The music of their wing—
Yet know we that they sojourn near,
The Angels of the spring!

They glide along this lovely ground
When the first violet grows;
Their graceful hands have just unbound
The zone of yonder rose.

I gather it for thy dear breast,
From stain and shadow free:
That which an Angel's touch hath blest
Is meet, my love, for thee!

1. We love the venerable house Our fathers built to God;
2. Here holy thoughts a light have shed From many a radiant face,
In heaven are kept their grateful vows, Their dust endears the sod.
And prayers of humble virtue spread The perfume of the place.

3. And anxious hearts have pondered here
The mystery of life,
And prayed th' Eternal Light to clear
Their doubts and aid their strife.

4. From humble tenements around
Came up the pensive train,
And in the church a blessing found,
That filled their homes again;

I have loved my land yet hailed it as a stranger
When birth-wracks wrecked me on a faerie shore:
I have kept the Faith yet hardly grasped it more
Than groping shepherds when they found the Manger.
I have loved my friends yet feared them more than foes
Lest they should ask the name God only knows;
And in long years of mating have been blest
Restlessly wondering why I was at rest.

Tying her bonnet under her chin,
She tied her raven ringlets in;
But not alone in the silken snare
Did she catch her lovely floating hair,
For, tying her bonnet under her chin,
She tied a young man's heart within.

They were strolling together up the hill,
Where the wind comes blowing merry and chill;
And it blew the curls, a frolicsome race,
All over the happy peach-colored face,
Till, scolding and laughing, she tied them in,
Under her beautiful dimpled chin.

And it blew a color, bright as the bloom
Of the pinkest fuchsia's tossing plume,

'T IS highly rational, we can't dispute,
The Love, being naked, should promote a suit:
But doth not oddity to him attach
Whose fire's so oft extinguished by a match?

Since we parted yester eve,
I do love thee, love, believe,
Twelve times dearer, twelve hours longer,—
One dream deeper, one night stronger,
One sun surer,—thus much more
Than I loved thee, love, before.

S ATURNIAN mother! why dost thou devour
Thy offspring, who by loving thee are curst?
Why must they fear thee who would fain be first
To add new glories to thy matchless dower?
Why must they flee before thy cruel power,
That punishes their best as treason's worst,—
The treason that despotic chains would burst,—
That makes men heroes who in slavery cower?
Upon thy brow the stars of empire burn;
Thy bearing has a majesty sublime.
Thy exiled children ever toward thee yearn;
Nor should their ardent love be deemed a crime.

This, this is what I love, and what is this?
I ask'd the beautiful earth, who said—‘not I.’
I ask'd the depths, and the immaculate sky
And all the spaces said—‘not He but His.’
And so, like one who scales a precipice,
Height after height, I scaled the flaming ball
Of the great universe, yea, pass'd o'er all
The world of thought, which so much higher is.
Then I exclaimed, ‘To whom is mute all murmur
Of phantasy, of nature, and of art,
He, than articulate language bears a firmer
And grander meaning in his own deep heart.

Go , Rose, and in her golden hair
You shall forget the garden soon;
The sunshine is a captive there
And crowns her with a constant noon.

And when your spicy odor goes,
And fades the beauty of your bloom,
Think what a lovely hand, O Rose,
Shall place your body in the tomb!