Dear lord, thy table is outspread;
What other could such feast afford?
And thou art waiting at the head,
But I am all unworthy, Lord;
Yet do I hear thee say,—
(Was ever love so free?)
Come hither, son, to-day
And sit and sup with me.
O master! I am full of doubt,
My heart with sin and fear...
Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him;
The little gray leaves were kind to Him
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.
Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content....
He gathered cherry-stones, and carved them quaintly
Into fine semblances of flies and flowers;
With subtle skill, he even imaged faintly
The forms of tiny maids and ivied towers.
His little blocks he loved to file and polish;
And ampler means he asked not, but despised.
All art but cherry-stones he would abolish,
For then his...
There in his room, whene’er the moon looks in,
And silvers now a shell, and now a fin,
And o’er his chart glides like an argosy,
Quiet and old sits he.
Danger! he hath grown homesick for thy smile.
Where hidest thou the while, heart’s boast,
Strange face of beauty sought and lost,
Star-face that lured him out from boyhood’s isle?
The sky-lark’s SONG
HEY, laddie, hark, to the merry, merry lark;
How high he singeth clear:
Oh, a morn in spring is the sweetest thing
That cometh in all the year!
Oh, a morn in spring is the sweetest thing
That cometh in all the year!
Ring, ting! it is the merry spring-time;
How full of heart a body feels!...
[Wither’s Song, or “Sonnet,” appeared first in his “Fidelia” in 1615, and later with some changes in “Fair Virtue,” 1622. Jonson’s parody, here given, came out in a Collection of Verses, in 1620.]
SHALL I mine affections slack,
’Cause I see a woman’s Black?
Or myself, with care cast down,
’Cause I see a woman Brown?
Be She blacker than the night,...
Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him;
The little gray leaves were kind to Him;
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.
Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content....
O Master, let me walk with thee
In lowly paths of service free;
Tell me thy secret; help me bear
The strain of toil, the fret of care;
Help me the slow of heart to move
By some clear winning word of love;
Teach me the wayward feet to stay,
And guide them in the homeward way.
O Master, let me walk with thee
Before the...
In the still air the music lies unheard;
In the rough marble beauty hides unseen:
To make the music and the beauty, needs
The master’s touch, the sculptor’s chisel keen.
Great Master, touch us with thy skilful hand;
Let not the music that is in us die!
Great Sculptor, hew and polish us; nor let,
Hidden and lost, thy form within...
To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor Muse can praise too much.* * * * *
Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
...
