"You run about, my little maid,
Your limbs they are alive;

If two are in the churchyard laid,
Then ye are only five.

"Their graves are green, they may be seen,'
The little maid replied,

"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,

And they are side by side.

"My stockings there I often knit,

My kerchief there I hem ;

And there upon the ground I sít,
I sit and sing to them.

"And often after sunset, sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.

The first that died was little Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,

Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.

"So in the churchyard she was laid;

And, all the summer dry,

Together round her grave we played,

My brother John and I.

"And when the ground was white with snow,

And I could run and slide,

My brother John was forced to go,

And he lies by her side."

"How many are you, then," said I,

"If they two are in heaven ?"

The little maiden did reply,

"O master! we are seven.

"But they are dead; those two are dead! Their spirits are in heaven!"

'T was throwing words away; for still The little maid would have her will, And said, "Nay, we are seven !"

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

THE BANKS O' DOON

YE banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair!
How can ye chant, ye little birds,

An' I sae weary, fu' o' care!

Thou 'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons through the flowering thorn:
Thou minds me o' departed joys,

Departed

Thou 'lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;

For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wistna o' my fate.

Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon,

To see the rose and woodbine twine;

And ilka bird sang o' its luve,

And fondly sae did I o' mine.

Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree;
And my fause lover stole my rose,
But ah! he left the thorn wi' me.

MY LOVE IS DEAD

O, SING unto my roundelay!
O, drop the briny tear with me!

Dance no more at holiday;
Like a running river be.

My love is dead,

Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.

ROBERT BURNS.

Black his hair as the summer night,
White his neck as the winter snow,
Ruddy his face as the morning light;
Cold he lies in the grave below.
My love is dead, etc.

Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note ;
Quick in dance as thought can be ;

Deft his tabor, cudgel stout;

O, he lies by the willow-tree.

My love is dead, etc.

Hark! the raven flaps his wing
In the brier'd dell below;
Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing
To the nightmares as they go.
My love is dead, etc.

See the white moon shines on high;
Whiter is my true-love's shroud,
Whiter than the morning sky,
Whiter than the evening cloud.
My love is dead, etc.

Here upon my true-love's grave
Shall the barren flowers be laid,
Nor one holy saint to save
All the coldness of a maid.
My love is dead, etc.

With my hands I 'll bind the briers
Round his holy corse to gre;
Ouphant fairy, light your fires;
Here my body still shall be.
My love is dead, etc.

Come, with acorn-cup and thorn
Drain my heart's blood away;
Life and all its good I scorn,
Dance by night, or feast by day.
My love is dead, etc.

Water-witches, crowned with reytes,
Bear me to your lethal tide.
I die! I come! my true-love waits.
Thus the damsel spake, and died.

THOMAS CHATTERTON.

NEVERMORE

NO MORE — no more — O, nevermore on me
The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,
Which out of all the lovely things we see
Extracts emotions beautiful and new,

Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee :
Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew ?
Alas! 't was not in them, but in thy power
To double even the sweetness of a flower.

LORD BYRON (Don Juan).

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay.
And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

DAY dawned;

A LIFE

within a curtained room,

Filled to faintness with perfume,

A lady lay at point of doom.

Day closed; a child had seen the light ;
But for the lady, fair and bright,

She rested in undreaming night.

Spring rose; the lady's grave was green,
And near it oftentimes was seen

A gentle boy, with thoughtful mien.

Years fled; - he wore a manly face,
And struggled in the world's rough race,
And won, at last, a lofty place.

And then he died! Behold before ye
Humanity's poor sum and story;

Life Death

- and all that is of Glory.

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (BARRY CORNWALL).

IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

WITH heavy head bent on her yielding hand,
And half-flushed cheek, bathed in a fevered light -

With restless lips, and most unquiet eyes,

A maiden sits and looks out on the night.

The darkness presses close against the pane,
And silence lieth on the elm tree old,

Through whose wide branches steals the white-faced moon
In fitful gleams, as though 't were bold.

She hears the wind upon the pavement fall,
And lifts her head, as if to listen there;
Then wearily she taps against the pane,

Or folds more close the ripples of her hair;
She sings unto herself an idle strain,

And through its music all her thoughts are seen; For all the burden of the song she sings

Is, "O my God! it might have been!"

Alas! that words like these should have the power
To crush the roses of her early youth
That on her altar of remembrance sleeps

Some hope, dismantled of its love and truth That 'mid the shadows of her memory lies

Some grave, moss-covered, where she loves to lean, And sadly sing unto the form therein,

"It might have been

O God! it might have been !"

We all have in our hearts some hidden place,
Some secret chamber where a cold corpse lies
The drapery of whose couch we dress anew
Each day, beneath the pale glare of its eyes;
We go
from its still presence to the sun,

To seek the pathways where it once was seen,
And strive to still the throbbing of our hearts

With this wild cry, "O God! it might have been!"

We mourn in secret o'er some buried love

In the far past, whence love does not return,

And strive to find among its ashes grey

Some lingering spark that yet may live and burn;
And when we see the vainness of our task,

We flee away, far from the hopeless scene,
And folding close our garments o'er our hearts,
Cry to the winds, "O God! it might have been!

Where'er we go, in sunlight or in shade,

We mourn some jewel which the heart has missed Some brow we touched in days long since gone bySome lips whose freshness and first dew we kissed; We shut out from our eyes the happy light

Of sunbeams dancing on the hill-side green, And, like the maiden, ope them to the light

And cry, like her, “O God! it might have been!"

ANONYMOUS.