A Library of Poetry and Song: Being Choice Selections from the Best Poets

I like May-bloom on thorn-tree, Thou like merry summer-bee ! Fit, that I be plucked for thee.

And that hour — beneath the beach

When I listened in a dream, I And he said, in his deep speech,

That he owed me all esteem -
Each word swam in on my brain
With a dim, dilating pain,
Till it burst with that last strain.

Yet who plucks me ? — no one mourns;

I have lived my season out;
And now die of my own thorns,

Which I could not live without.
Sweet, be merry! How the light
Comes and goes! If it be night,
Keep the candles in my sight.

I fell flooded with a dark,

In the silence of a swoon ;
When I rose, still, cold, and stark,

There was night, - I saw the moon;
And the stars, each in its place,
And the May-blooms on the grass,

Seemed to wonder what I was.
And I walked as if apart

From myself when I could stand,
And I pitied my own heart,

As if I held it in my hand
Somewhat coldly, with a sense
Of fulfilled benevolence,
And a “ Poor thing” negligence.

Are there footsteps at the door ?

Look out quickly. Yea, or nay? Some one might be waiting for

Some last word that I might say. Nay? So best !--- So angels would Stand off clear from deathly road, Not to cross the sight of God.

Colder grow my hands and feet, —

When I wear the shroud I made, Let the folds lie straight and neat,

And the rosemary be spread,
That if any friend should come,
(To see thee, sweet !) all the room
May be lifted out of gloom.

And I answered coldly too,

When you met me at the door ;
And I only heard the dew

Dripping from me to the floor ;
And the flowers I bade you see
Were too withered for the bee, -

As my life, henceforth, for me. , Do not weep so-dear-heart-warm !

It was best as it befell !
If I say he did me harm,

I speak wild, - I am not well.
All his words were kind and good,
He esteemed me! Only blood
Runs so faint in womanhood.

And, dear Bertha, let me keep

On my hand this little ring, Which at nights, when others sleep,

I can still see glittering.
Let me wear it out of sight,
In the grave, — where it will light
All the dark up, day and night.

On that grave drop not a tear !

Else, though fathom-deep the place, Through the woollen shroud I wear

I shall feel it on my face.
Rather smile there, blessed one,
Thinking of me in the sun, -
Or forget me, smiling on!

Then I always was too grave,

Liked the saddest ballads sung,
With that look, besides, we have

In our faces who die young.
I had died, dear, all the same, –
Life's long, joyous, jostling game

Is too loud for my meek shame.
We are so unlike each other,

Thou and I, that none could guess We were children of one mother,

But for mutual tenderness.
Thou art rose-lined from the cold,
And meant, verily, to hold
Life's pure pleasures manifold.

Art thou near me ? nearer ? so !

Kiss me close upon the eyes,
That the earthly light may go

Sweetly as it used to rise,
When I watched the morning gray
Strike, betwixt the hills, the way
He was sure to come that day.

I am pale as crocus grows

Close beside a rose-tree's root! Whosoe'er would reach the rose,

Treads the crocus underfoot;

So- no more vain words be said !

The hosannas nearer roll -
Mother, smile now on thy dead, -

I am death-strong in my soul !
Mystic Dove alit on cross,
Guide the poor bird of the snows
Through the snow-wind above loss

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

SIDNEY DOBELL.

Jesus, victim, comprehending

As a' peculiar darling? Lo, the flies
Love's divine self-abnegation,

Hum o'er him! Lo, a feather from the crow Cleanse my love in its self-spending, Falls in his parted lips! Lo, his dead eyes And absorb the poor libation !

See not the raven! Lo, the worm, the worm
Wind my thread of life up higher, Creeps from his festering corse! My God ! my
Up through angels' hands of fire ! -

God!
I aspire while I expire !

O Lord, Thou doest well. I am content.
If Thou have need of him he shall not stay.
But as one calleth to a servant, saying

“At such a time be with me,” so, O Lord,
HOMESICK.

Call him to Thee! O, bid him not in haste COME to me, O my Mother ! come to me,

Straight whence he standeth. Let him lay aside Thine own son slowly dying far away!

The soiléd tools of labor. Let him wash Through the moist ways of the wide ocean, blown

His hands of blood. Let him array himself By great invisible winds, come stately ships

| Meet for his Lord, pure from the sweat and fume To this calm bay for quiet anchorage ;

Of corporal travail ! Lord, if he must die, They come, they rest awhile, they go away,

Let him die here. O, take him where Thou gavest ! But, O my Mother, never comest thou !

And even as once I held him in my womb The snow is round thy dwelling, the white snow, Till all things were fulfilled, and he came forth, That cold soft revelation pure as light,

So, O Lord, let me hold him in my grave And the pine-spire is mystically fringed,

Till the time come, and Thou, who settest when Laced with incrusted silver. Here -- ah me! - The hinds shall calve, ordain a better birth; The winter is decrepit, underborn,

And as I looked and saw my son, and wept A leper with no power but his disease.

For joy, I look again and see my son, Why am I from thee, Mother, far from thee ?

| And weep again for joy of him and Thee ! Far from the frost enchantment, and the woods Jewelled from bough to bough? O home, my

home!
O river in the valley of my home,

THE FAREWELL
With mazy-winding motion intricate,
Twisting thy deathless music underneath
The polished ice-work, — must I nevermore

INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE.
Behold thee with familiar eyes, and watch

Gone, gone, - sold and gone, Thy beauty changing with the changeful day,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone. Thy beauty constant to the constant change? Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,

DAVID GRAY. Where the noisome insect stings,

Where the fever demon strews

Poison with the falling dews,
THE ABSENT SOLDIER SON.

Where the sickly sunbeams glare

Through the hot and misty air, —
FROM "THE ROMAN."

Gone, gone, - sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone, LORD, I am weeping. As Thou wilt, O Lord,

From Virginia's hill and waters, – Do with him as Thou wilt; but O my God,

Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! Let him come back to die! Let not the fowls O'the air defile the body of my child,

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, My own fair child, that when he was a babe,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone. I lift up in my arms and gave to Thee !

There no mother's eye is near them, Let not his garment, Lord, be vilely parted,

There no mother's ear can hear them ; Nor the fine linen which these hands have spun Never, when the torturing lash Fall to the stranger's lot! Shall the wild bird, Seams their back with many a gash, That would have pilfered of the ox, this year

Shall a mother's kindness bless them, Disdain the pens and stalls ? Shall her blind Or a mother's arms caress them. young,

Gone, gone, — sold and gone, That on the fleck and moult of brutish beasts

To the rice-swamp dank and lone, Had been too happy, sleep in cloth of gold

From Virginia's hills and waters, Whereof each thread is to this beating heart

Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS SOLD

Gone, gone, — sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
0, when weary, sad, and slow,
From the fields at night they go,
Faint with toil, and racked with pain,
To their cheerless homes again,
There no brother's voice shall greet them,-
There no father's welcome meet them.

Gone, gone,- sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters, –
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gonc, - sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone, -
Toiling through the weary day,
And at night the spoiler's prey.
O that they had earlier died,
Sleeping calmly, side by side,
Where the tyrant's power is o'er,
And the fetter galls no more !

Gone, gone, --- sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters, –
Woe is me, my stolen daughters !
Gone, gone, — sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
By the holy love He beareth, -
By the bruised reed He spareth, —
0, may He, to whom alone
All their cruel wrongs are known,
Still their hope and refuge prove,
With a more than mother's love.

Gone, gone, “sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters, –
Woe is me, my stolen daughters !

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

Gone, gone, — sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From the tree whose shadow lay
On their childhood's place of play, —
From the cool spring where they drank,
Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank, -
From the solemn house of prayer,
And the holy counsels there, - .

Gone, gone, — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters, –
Woe is me, my stolen daughters !

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BLACK-EYED SUSAN.

I dare not think upon thy vow,

And all it promised me, Mary.
No fond regret must Norman know;
When bursts Clan-Alpine on the foe,
His heart must be like bended bow,

His foot like arrow free, Mary.
A time will come with feeling fraught!
For, if I fall in battle fought,
Thy hapless lover's dying thought

Shall be a thought on thee, Mary.
And if returned from conquered foes,
How blithely will the evening close,
How sweet the linnet sing repose,
To my young bride and me, Mary!

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

All in the Downs the fleet was moored,

The streamers waving in the wind, When black eyed Susan came aboard ;

“0, where shall I my true-love find ? Tell me, ye jovial sailors, tell me true If my sweet William sails among the crew."

William, who high upon the yard

Rocked with the billow to and fro, Soon as her well-known voice he heard

He sighed, and cast his eyes below: Thecord slides swiftly through his glowing hands, And quick as lightning on the deck he stands.

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