One heavy day I ran away from the grim face of society and the dizzying clamor of the city and directed my weary step to the spacious alley. I pursued the beckoning course of the rivulet and the musical sounds of the birds until I reached a lonely spot where the flowing branches of the trees prevented the sun from the touching the earth.

I stood there, and it was entertaining to my soul - my thirsty soul who had seen naught but the mirage of life instead of its sweetness.

Here, down between the dusty trees,
At this lank edge of haggard wood,
Women with labour-loosened knees,
With gaunt backs bowed by servitude,
Stop, shift their loads, and pray, and fare
Forth with souls easier for the prayer.

The suns have branded black, the rains
Striped grey this piteous God of theirs;
The face is full of prayers and pains,
To which they bring their pains and prayers;
Lean limbs that shew the labouring bones,
And ghastly mouth that gapes and groans.

God of this grievous people, wrought

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
II
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.
III
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

And a poet said, "Speak to us of Beauty."

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?

And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?

The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind and gentle.

Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us."

And the passionate say, "Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.

Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us."

To Original Music


The people in this nation,
Have kept for many years,
February twenty-second,
That day we love it dear.
It's our forefather's birthday,
Brave, noble Washington;
And may we ever keep it,
Through all the years to come.

CHORUS:

Beautiful twenty-second,
Beautiful twenty-second,
May the people ever keep it,
Beautiful twenty-second.

One of the constitution builders,
Was that brave, noble man,
He fought under that dear flag
That's loved throughout our land.

Off on the prairie, where the balmy air
Kisses the waving corn,
There lives a farmer, with a daughter fair--
Fair as a summer's morn!
She has a nature gentle as a dove,
Pure as the mountain snows;
Say! is it strange that everyone should love--
Love such a girl as Rose?

Beautiful Rose! lovely Rose!
Pride of the prairie bower!
Everybody loves her--everybody knows
She is the fairest flower.

Rose is a lady yet from early dawn,
Labors her skillful hand;
She is the housewife, now her mother's gone--
Gone to the better land.

It ought to be lovely to be old
to be full of the peace that comes of experience
and wrinkled ripe fulfilment.

The wrinkled smile of completeness that follows a life
lived undaunted and unsoured with accepted lies
they would ripen like apples, and be scented like pippins
in their old age.

Soothing, old people should be, like apples
when one is tired of love.
Fragrant like yellowing leaves, and dim with the soft
stillness and satisfaction of autumn.

And a girl should say:
It must be wonderful to live and grow old.

Beautiful Monikie! with your trees and shrubberies green
And your beautiful walks, most charming to be seen:
'Tis a beautiful place for pleasure-seekers to resort,
Because there they can have innocent sport,
taking a leisure walk all round about,
And see the ang1ers fishing in the pand for trout.

Besides, there's lovely white swans swimming on the pond,
And Panmure Monument can be seen a little distance beyond;
And the scenery all round is enchanting I declare,
While sweet-scented fragrance fills the air.

Beautiful city of Edinburgh, most wonderful to be seen,
With your ancient palace of Holyrood and Queen's Park Green,
And your big, magnificent, elegant New College,
Where people from all nations can be taught knowledge.

The New College of Edinburgh is certainly very grand
Which I consider to be an honour to fair Scotland,
Because it's the biggest in the world, without any doubt,
And is most beautiful in the inside as well as out.

And the Castle is wonderful to look upon,
Which has withstood many angry tempests in years bygone;

That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.

Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.

You are not Catullus, you know,