The colour tones that Rousseau loved so well,
Like blast and blare of music's bursting swell,
Are flushed of dying Autumn's wizard light
When troubled day sinks into sombre night,
And trace the tragic splendour of a quest
That organ peals of stately strain suggest.
His masterpieces pierce to Nature's mood
When sullen, elemental forces brood
Pregnant of passion, charged of wrathful force—
The solemn pause ere storm clouds take their course.

Dear little Friends, ah! would I had
A score of nice cig-boxes,
Wherewith to serve your tender loves—
You pretty hens and cockses!

But here alas! all I can find;
I pray you, don't reject 'em:
Perchance anon they'll serve a turn
Your fledglings to protect 'em.

So prosper, Sweets, your springtide loves
Secure from all life's dangers:
The Gods ordain you and your chicks
To every ill be strangers!

1. It was down in a lone green valley Where the roses
bloom and fade, There lies a jealous lover In
love with a beautiful maid. One night the moon shone
brightly, The stars were shining too, And to the
maiden's cottage This jealous lover drew.

2 “Come, love, and we will wander
Down where those woods are gay.
While wandering we will ponder
And plan our wedding day.”
So arm in arm they wandered,
The night birds sang above.
This jealous lover grew angry
With the beautiful girl he loved.

3 The night was dark and dreary.

Though others think I stare with eyes unseeing,
I've loved you, Mistress mine, so dear to me,
With all my fervent rag-and-sawdust being
Since first you took me from the Christmas Tree.
I love you though my only frock you tear off;
I love you though you smear my face at meals;
I love you though you've washed my painted hair off;
I love you when you drag me by the heels;
I love you though you've sewed three buttons on me,
But most I love you when you sit upon me.

No jealous pang shall mar my pure affection;

The lips of Venus are as sweet
Though sipped within a London street,
And her rich hair
Is just as soft for lips to meet
In London air.

And Daphne's limbs are pure and white
Though darkness of a London night
Beholds them kissed,
Not skies with tints of sapphire bright
Or amethyst.

And Psyche's lips are no less red
In that two thousand years have fled
With all their flowers
Since her old namesake sweet was wed
In Southern bowers

And passion is no less divine
Though round the brows of love we twine
No amorous leaves,

I never knew a night so black
Light failed to follow on its track.
I never knew a storm so gray
It failed to have its clearing day.
I never knew such bleak despair
That there was not a rift, somewhere.
I never knew an hour so drear
Love could not fill it full of cheer!

I never knew a night so black
Light failed to follow on its track.
I never knew a storm so gray
It failed to have its clearing day.
I never knew such bleak despair
That there was not a rift, somewhere.
I never knew an hour so drear
Love could not fill it full of cheer!

Walking in a valley green,
Pied with Flora, summer queen,
Where she heaping all her graces,
Niggard seemed in other places,
Spring it was and here did spring
All that nature forth can bring.
Groves of pleasant trees there grow,
Which fruit and shadow could bestow.
Thick-leaved boughs small birds cover,
Till sweet notes themselves discover;
Tunes for number seemed confounded,
Whilst their mixtures music sounded,
'Greeing well, yet not agreed,
That one the other should exceed.
A sweet stream here silent glides,
Whose clear water no fish hides.

Some act of Love's bound to rehearse,
I thought to bind him, in my verse:
Which when he felt, Away (quoth he)
Can poets hope to fetter me?
It is enough, they once did get
Mars, and my mother, in their net:
I wear not these my wings in vain.
With which he fled me: and again,
Into my rhymes could ne'er be got
By any art. Then wonder not,
That since, my numbers are so cold,
When Love is fled, and I grow old.

The stars stand up in the air,
The sun and the moon are gone,
The strand of its waters is bare.
And her sway is swept from the swan.

The cuckoo was calling all day,
Hid in the branches above,
How my stóirín is fled away,
'Tis my grief that I gave her my love.

Three things through love I see—
Sorrow and sin and death—
And my mind reminding me
That this doom I breathe with my breath.

But sweeter than violin or lute
Is my love—and she left me behind.
I wish that all music were mute,
And I to all beauty were blind.