Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

IN CITY STREETS

YONDER in the heather there's a bed for sleeping,
Drink for one athirst, ripe blackberries to eat;
Yonder in the sun the merry hares go leaping,
And the pool is clear for travel-wearied feet.

Sorely throb my feet, a-tramping London highways,
(Ah! the springy moss upon a northern moor!)
Through the endless streets, the gloomy squares and by-

ways,

Homeless in the City, poor among the poor!

London streets are gold-ah, give me leaves a-glinting
'Midst gray dykes and hedges in the autumn sun!
London water's wine, poured out for all unstinting-
God! For the little brooks that tumble as they run!

Oh, my heart is fain to hear the soft wind blowing,
Soughing through the fir-tops up on northern fells!
Oh, my eye's an ache to see the brown burns flowing
Through the peaty soil and tinkling heather-bells.
Ada Smith [18 -

THE VAGABOND

(To an Air of Schubert)

GIVE to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above

And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
Bread I dip in the river-
There's the life for a man like me,
There's the life for ever.

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o'er me;
Give the face of earth around
And the road before me.

[blocks in formation]

IN THE HIGHLANDS

In the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
And the young fair maidens

Quiet eyes;

Where essential silence cheers and blesses,
And for ever in the hill-recesses

Her more lovely music

Broods and dies.

O to mount again where erst I haunted;
Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,
And the low green meadows

Bright with sward;

i.

And when even dies, the million-tinted,

And the night has come, and planets glinted,
Lo, the valley hollow
Lamp-bestarred!

O to dream, O to awake and wander

There, and with delight to take and render,
Through the trance of silence,

Quiet breath!

Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
Only winds and rivers,

Life and Death.

Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-1894]

THE SONG MY PADDLE SINGS

WEST wind, blow from your prairie nest,

Blow from the mountains, blow from the west.
The sail is idle, the sailor too;

O wind of the west, we wait for you!
Blow, blow!

I have wooed you so,

But never a favor you bestow.

You rock your cradle the hills between,
But scorn to notice my white lateen.

I stow the sail and unship the mast:
I wooed you long, but my wooing's past;

My paddle will lull you into rest:

O drowsy wind of the drowsy west,
Sleep, sleep!

By your mountains steep,

Or down where the prairie grasses sweep,
Now fold in slumber your laggard wings,
For soft is the song my paddle sings.

Be strong, O paddle! be brave, canoe!
The reckless waves you must plunge into.

Reel, reel,

The Gipsy Trail

On your trembling keel,

But never a fear my craft will feel.

We've raced the rapids; we're far ahead:

The river slips through its silent bed.

Sway, sway,

As the bubbles spray

And fall in tinkling tunes away.

And up on the hills against the sky,

A fir tree rocking its lullaby

Swings, swings,

Its emerald wings,

Swelling the song that my paddie sings.

E. Pauline Johnson [1862

THE GIPSY TRAIL

THE white moth to the closing vine,
The bee to the open clover,

And the gipsy blood to the gipsy blood
Ever the wide world over.

Ever the wide world over, lass,
Ever the trail held true,

Over the world and under the world,
And back at the last to you.

Out of the dark of the gorgio camp,
Out of the grime and the gray
(Morning waits at the end of the world),
Gipsy, come away!

The wild boar to the sun-dried swamp,

The red crane to her reed,

And the Romany lass to the Romany lad
By the tie of a roving breed.

1629

Morning waits at the end of the world

Where winds unhaltered play,

Nipping the flanks of their plunging ranks,
Till the white sea-horses neigh.

The pied snake to the rifted rock,
The buck to the stony plain,

And the Romany lass to the Romany lad,
And both to the road again.

Both to the road again, again!
Out of a clean sea-track-
Follow the cross of the gipsy trail
Over the world and back!

Follow the Romany patteran

North where the blue bergs sail,
And the bows are gray with the frozen spray,
And the masts are shod with mail.

Follow the Romany patteran

Sheer to the Austral Light,

Where the besom of God is the wild west wind,

Sweeping the sea-floors white.

Follow the Romany patteran

West to the sinking sun,

Till the junk-sails lift through the houseless drift,

And the east and the west are one.

Follow the Romany patteran

East where the silence broods

By a purple wave on an opal beach
In the hush of the Mahim woods.

The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky,
The deer to the wholesome wold,

And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid,
As it was in the days of old.

« AnteriorContinuar »