They call you proud and hard, England, my England:
You with worlds to watch and ward, England, my own!
You whose mail'd hand keeps the keys
Of such teeming destinies,
You could know nor dread nor ease Were the Song on your bugles blown, England—
Round the Pit on your bugles blown!
Mother of Ships whose might, England, my England,
Is the fierce old Sea's delight, England, my own, Chosen daughter of the Lord, Spouse-in-Chief of the ancient Sword, There's the menace of the Word
In the Song on your bugles blown, England—
Out of heaven on your bugles blown!
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON [1850-1894]
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 chills 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;
And when even dies, the million-tinted,
And the night has come, and planets glinted, Lo, the valley hollow Lamp-bestarr'd!
O to dream, O to awake and wander There, and with delight to take and render, Through the trance of silence,
Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses, Only the mightier movement sounds and passes; Only winds and rivers,
THE CELESTIAL SURGEON
If I have faltered more or less In my great task of happiness; If I have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face; If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies, Books, and my food, and summer rain Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:— Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take And stab my spirit broad awake; Or, Lord, if too obdurate I, Choose thou, before that spirit die, A piercing pain, a killing sin, And to my dead heart run them in.
Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill.
To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;— Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around— Earth and her waters, and the depths of air— Comes a still voice—Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings, The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods—rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,— Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there: And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone. So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron and maid, The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man-
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
ROBERT OF LINCOLN
Merrily swinging on brier and weed, Near to the nest of his little dame,
Over the mountain-side or mead,
Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Snug and safe is that nest of ours, Hidden among the summer flowers. Chee, chee, chee.
Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest,
Wearing a bright black wedding-coat; White are his shoulders and white his crest. Hear him call in his merry note: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Look, what a nice new coat is mine, Sure there was never a bird so fine. Chee, chee, chee.
Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife,
Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings,
Passing at home a patient life,
Broods in the grass while her husband sings:
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