THE MILKMAID'S SONG. TURN, turn, for my cheeks they burn, He has turned by the dale, And there by the stile waits Harry. Fill fill, Fill pail, fill, For there by the stile waits Harry! Wheugh, wheugh! he has whistled through, The world may go round, the world may stand Set the sun and fall the dew, And, oh, if he goes a-soldiering, Heigho, merry world, what 's to do Low in the grass and high on the bough, O world, have you ever a lover? O world, have you ever a lover? I could not see a leaf on the tree, And now I could count them, one, two, three, Count them over and over, Leaf from leaf like lips apart, Like lips apart for a lover. And the hill-side beats with my beating heart, And the apple-tree blushes all over, And the May-bough touched me and made me start, And the wind breathes warm like a lover. Pull, pull and the pail is full, And milking 's done and over. Who would not sit here under the tree? What a fair fair thing's a green field to see! Brim, brim, to the rim, ah me! I have set my pail on the daisies! It seems so light-can the sun be set? The dews must be heavy, my cheeks are wet, I could cry to have hurt the daisies! Harry is near, Harry is near, My heart's as sick as if he were here, My lips are burning, my cheeks are wet, But the air's astir with his praises, My Harry! The air 's astir with your praises. The cows they may low, the bells they may He has scaled the rock by the pixy's stone, He's among the kingcups-he picks me one, I love the grass that I tread upon When I go to my Harry! He has jumped the brook, he has climbed the knowe, There's never a faster foot I know, But still he seems to tarry. O Harry! O Harry! my love, my pride, They may talk of glory over the sea, But Harry's alive, and Harry 's for me, My love, my lad, my Harry! Come spring, come winter, come sun, come snow, What cares Dolly, whether or no, Fill, fill! he 's crossed the hill, I can see him down by the stile, He's passed the hay, he 's coming this way, He's coming to me, my Harry! While I can milk and marry? Right or wrong, and wrong or right, Quarrel who quarrel, and fight who fight, A gun, and a flash, and a gun, High and low, low and high, in the sun, When he came who shall never come more, But she droops like a dew-dropping lily, All as she saw it that day, With a gun, and a flash, and a gun, 66 Nearer and nearer she hears the rolling drum, Merry, merry, merry, up the merry highway, And said, "Wilt thou be my dearie? Oh, wilt thou be my dearie? My boat is dry in the bay, VOL. III.-35 And I'll love till thou be weary!" As he who will never love more, Then she shakes like a wind-stricken lily, AN EVENING DREAM. I'm leaning where you loved to lean in even- The sun has sunk an hour ago behind the tree- In this old oriel that we loved how oft I sit for lorn, Gazing, gazing, up the vale of green and waving corn. The summer corn is in the ear, thou knowest what I see Up the long wide valley, and from seldom tree to tree, The serried corn, the serried corn, the green and serried corn, From the golden morn till night, from the moony night till morn. I love it, morning, noon, and night, in sunshine and in rain, back again." For being here it seems to say, "The lost come And being here as green and fair as those old fields we knew, It says, "The lost when they come back, come back unchanged and true." But more than at the shout of morn, or in the sleep of noon, Smiling with a smiling star, or wan beneath a wasted moon, I love it, soldier-brother! at this weird dim hour, for then The serried ears are swords and spears, and the fields are fields of men. still I can discern, Rank on rank in faultless phalanx stern and Phalanx after faultless phalanx in dumb armies still and stern; Army on army, host on host, till the bannered nations stand, As the dead may stand for judgment silent on the o'er-peopled land. Not a bayonet stirs; down sinks the awful twilight, dern and dun, On an age that waits its leader, on a world that waits the sun. Then your dog-I know his voice-cries from out the court-yard nigh, And my love too well interprets all that long and mournful cry! In my passion that thou art not, lo! I see thee as thou art, And the pitying fancy brings thee to assuage the anguished heart. "O my brother!" and my bosom's throb of welcome at the word, Claps a hundred thousand hands, and all my legions hail thee lord. And the vast unmotioned myriads, front to front, as at a breath, Live and move to martial music, down the devious dance of death. Ah, thou smilest, scornful brother, at a maiden's dream of war! And thou shakest back thy locks as if-a glowworm for thy star I dubbed thee with a blade of grass, by earthlight, in a fairy ring, Knight o' the garter o' Queen Mab, or lord in waiting to her king. Brother, in thy plumèd pride of tented field and turretted tower, Smiling brother, scornful brother, darest thou watch with me one hour? Even now some fate is near, for I shake and know not why, And a wider sight is orbing, orbing on my moistened eye, And I feel a thousand flutterings round my soul's still vacant field, Like the ravens and the vultures o'er a carnage yet unkilled. Hist! I see the stir of glamour far upon the twi Secret as a silent sea, mighty as a moving main! O my country! is there none to rouse thee to the rolling sight? O thou gallant sentinel who hast watched so oft, so well, must thou sleep this only night? So hath the shepherd lain on a rock above a plain, Nor beheld the flood that swelled from some embowelled mount of woe, Waveless, foamless, sure and slow, Till nigher still and nigher comes the seeth of fields on fire, And the thrash of falling trees, and the steam of rivers dry, And before the burning flood the wild things of the wood Skulk and scream, and fight, and fall, and flee, and fly. As if, one after one, ten poppies red had blown, And shed in a blinking of the eyes? They have started from their rest with a bayonet at each breast, Those watchers of the west who shall never watch again! 'Tis naught to die, but oh, God's pity on the woe Of dying hearts that know they die in vain! Beyond yon backward height that meets their dying sight, A thousand tents are white, and a slumbering army lies. "Brown Bess," the sergeant cries, as he loads her while he dies, "Let this devil's deluge reach them, and the good old cause is lost." He dies upon the word, but his signal-gun is heard, Yon ambush green is stirred, yon laboring leaves are tossed, And a sudden sabre waves, and like dead from opened graves, A hundred men stand up to meet a host. And the dear old native land, like a dream of sudden sleep, Passes by each manly eye that is fixed so stern and dry On the tide of battle rolling up the steep. They hold their silent ground, I can hear each fatal sound passed. A moment on each side the surging smoke is wide, Between the fields are green, and around the hills are loud, But a shout breaks out, and, lo! they have rushed upon the foe, As the living lightning leaps from cloud to cloud. Fire and flash, smoke and crash, The fogs of battle close o'er friends and foes, and they are gone! Alas, thou bright-eyed boy! alas, thou mother's joy! With thy long hair so fair, that didst so bravely lead them on! I faint with pain and fear. Ah, Heaven! what do I hear? A trumpet-note so near? A gun! and then a gun! I' the far and early What are these that race like hunters in a sun Dost thou see by yonder tree a fleeting red chase? Who are these that run a thousand men as ness rise, one? |