“Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.”—LAMENTATIONS iii. 54.
ONE day I wandered where the salt sea-tide
Backward had drawn its wave,
And found a spring as sweet as e’er hillside
To wild-flowers gave.
Freshly it sparkled in the sun’s bright look,
And mid its pebbles strayed,
As if it thought...
The Sun comes up and the sun goes down,
And day and night are the same as one;
The year grows green, and the year grows brown,
And what is it all, when all is done?
Grains of sombre or shining sand,
Gliding into and out of the hand.
And men go down in ships to the seas,
And a hundred ships are the same as one;
And backward and...
Yes, stone the woman, let the man go free!
Draw back your skirts, lest they perchance may touch
Her garment as she passes; but to him
Put forth a willing hand to clasp with his
That led her to destruction and disgrace.
Shut up from her the sacred ways of toil,
That she no more may win an honest meal;
But ope to him all honorable paths...
The Black-haired gaunt Paulinus
By ruddy Edwin stood:—
“Bow down, O king of Deira,
Before the blessèd Rood!
Cast out thy heathen idols,
And worship Christ our Lord.”
—But Edwin looked and pondered,
And answered not a word.
Again the gaunt Paulinus
To ruddy Edwin spake:
“God offers life immortal...
That clime is not like this dull clime of ours;
All, all is brightness there;
A sweeter influence breathes around its flowers,
And a benigner air.
No calm below is like that calm above,
No region here is like that realm of love;
Earth’s softest spring ne’er shed so soft a light,
Earth’s brightest summer never shone so bright....
“WHO would not go”
With buoyant steps, to gain that blessed portal,
Which opens to the land we long to know?
Where shall be satisfied the soul’s immortal,
Where we shall drop the wearying and the woe
In resting so?
“Ah, who would fear?”
Since, sometimes through the distant pearly portal,
...
Or, the Soul’s Breathing after the Heavenly Country
“Since Christ’s fair truth needs no man’s art,
Take this rude song in better part.”
O MOTHER dear, Jerusalem,
When shall I come to thee?
When shall my sorrows have an end—
Thy joys when shall I see?
O happy harbor of God’s saints!
O sweet and pleasant soil!
In thee...
English: Thirteenth Century
SUMER 1 is icumen in.
Lhude sing cuccu.
Groweth sed
And bloweth med
And springth the wude nu.
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu;
Bulluc sterteth,
Bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu.
Cuccu, cuccu.
Along the frozen lake she comes
In linking crescents, light and fleet;
The ice-imprisoned Undine hums
A welcome to her little feet.
I see the jaunty hat, the plume
Swerve birdlike in the joyous gale,—
The cheeks lit up to burning bloom,
The young eyes sparkling through the veil.
The quick breath parts her laughing lips...
The Lark sings for joy in her own loved land,
In the furrowed field, by the breezes fanned;
And so revel we
In the furrowed sea,
As joyous and glad as the lark can be.
On the placid breast of the inland lake
The wild duck delights her pastime to take;
But the petrel braves
The wild ocean waves,...
