1 Like to the clear in highest sphere
2 Where all imperial glory shines,
3 Of selfsame colour is her hair,
4 Whether unfolded or in twines:
5 Heigh ho, fair Rosalind.
6 Her eyes are sapphires set in snow,
7 Refining heaven by every wink;
8 The gods do fear whenas they glow,
9 And I do tremble when I think:
10 Heigh ho, would she were mine.

11 Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud
12 That beautifies Aurora's face,
13 Or like the silver crimson shroud

O listen, listen, ladies gay!
No haughty feat of arms I tell;
Soft is the note, and sad the lay
That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.

‘Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew!
And, gentle lady, deign to stay!
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,
Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.

‘The blackening wave is edged with white;
To inch and rock the sea-mews fly;
The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite,
Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh.

‘Last night the gifted Seer did view
A wet shroud swathed round lady gay;

At four o'clock
in the gun-metal blue dark
we hear the first crow of the first cock

just below
the gun-metal blue window
and immediately there is an echo

off in the distance,
then one from the backyard fence,
then one, with horrible insistence,

grates like a wet match
from the broccoli patch,
flares,and all over town begins to catch.

Cries galore
come from the water-closet door,
from the dropping-plastered henhouse floor,

where in the blue blur
their rusting wives admire,

Three gentlemen live close beside me --
A painter of pictures bizarre,
A poet whose virtues might guide me,
A singer who plays the guitar;
And there on my lintel is Cupid;
I leave my door open, and yet
These gentlemen, aren't they stupid!
They never make love to Babette.

I go to the shop every morning;
I work with my needle and thread;
Silk, satin and velvet adorning,
Then luncheon on coffee and bread.
Then sewing and sewing till seven;
Or else, if the order I get,
I toil and I toil till eleven --

There where the rusty iron lies,
The rooks are cawing all the day.
Perhaps no man, until he dies,
Will understand them, what they say.

The evening makes the sky like clay.
The slow wind waits for night to rise.
The world is half content. But they

Still trouble all the trees with cries,
That know, and cannot put away,
The yearning to the soul that flies
From day to night, from night to day.

[and scarcely worth the trouble, at that]

The same to me are somber days and gay.
Though Joyous dawns the rosy morn, and bright,
Because my dearest love is gone away
Within my heart is melancholy night.

My heart beats low in loneliness, despite
That riotous Summer holds the earth in sway.
In cerements my spirit is bedight;
The same to me are somber days and gay.

Though breezes in the rippling grasses play,
And waves dash high and far in glorious might,
I thrill no longer to the sparkling day,

THE night was thick and hazy
When the 'Piccadilly Daisy'
Carried down the crew and captain in the sea;
And I think the water drowned 'em;
For they never, never found 'em,
And I know they didn't come ashore with me.



Oh! 'twas very sad and lonely
When I found myself the only
Population on this cultivated shore;
But I've made a little tavern
In a rocky little cavern,
And I sit and watch for people at the door.



I spent no time in looking

How blind the toil that burrows like the mole,
In winding graveyard pathways underground,
For Browning's lineage! What if men have found
Poor footmen or rich merchants on the roll
Of his forbears? Did they beget his soul?
Nay, for he came of ancestry renowned
Through all the world, -- the poets laurel-crowned
With wreaths from which the autumn takes no toll.

The blazons on his coat-of-arms are these:
The flaming sign of Shelley's heart on fire,
The golden globe of Shakespeare's human stage,

Rise, lovers, that we may go towards heaven; we have seen this world, so let us go to that world.
No, no, for thought these two gardens are beautiful and fair, let us pass beyond these two, and go to that Gardener.
Let us go prostrating to the sea like a torrent, then let us go foaming upon the face of the sea.
Let us journey from this street of mourning to the wedding feast, let us go from this saffron face to the face of the Judas tree blossom.
Trembling like a leaf and twig from fear of falling, our hearts are throbbing; let us go to the Abode of Security.

Rich in red honors, that upon him lie
As lightly as the Summer dews
Fall where he won his fame beneath the sky
Of tropic Vera Cruz;

Bold scorner of the cant that has its birth
In feeble or in failing powers;
A lover of all frank and genial mirth
That wreathes the sword with flowers;

He moves amid the warriors of the day,
Just such a soldier as the art
That builds its trophies upon human clay
Moulds of a cheerful heart.

I see him in the battle that shall shake,
Ere long, old Sumter's haughty crown,