My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange one to the other given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
There never was a better bargain driven:
My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.
His heart in me keeps him and me in one;
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:
He loves my heart, for once it...
ALAS, that my heart is a lute,
Whereon you have learned to play!
For a many years it was mute,
Until one summer’s day
You took it, and touched it, and made it thrill,
And it thrills and throbs, and quivers still!
I had known you, dear, so long!
Yet my heart did not tell me why
It should burst one morn into song,...
What ails this heart o’ mine?
What ails this watery ee?
What gars me a’ turn pale as death
When I take leave o’ thee?
When thou art far awa’,
Thou ’lt dearer grow to me;
But change o’ place and change o’ folk
May gar thy fancy jee.
When I gae out at e’en,
Or walk at morning air,
Ilk rustling bush will...
Where are the swallows fled?
Frozen and dead
Perchance upon some bleak and stormy shore.
O doubting heart!
Far over purple seas
They wait, in sunny ease,
The balmy southern breeze
To bring them to their northern homes once more.
Why must the flowers die?
Prisoned they lie...
From “Anima Mundi”
GOD is good,
And flight is destined for the callow wing,
And the high appetite implies the food,
And souls most reach the level whence they spring;
O Life of very life! set free our powers,
Hasten the travail of the yearning hours.
Thou, to whom old Philosophy bent low,
To the wise...
With echoing steps the worshippers
Departed one by one;
The organ’s pealing voice was stilled,
The vesper hymn was done;
The shadow fell from roof and arch,
Dim was the incensed air,
One lamp alone, with trembling ray,
Told of the Presence there!
In the dark church she knelt alone;
Her tears were falling fast;...
From “Patient Grissell,” Act I. Sc. 1.
ART thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
O sweet content!
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed?
O punishment!
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed
To add to golden numbers, golden numbers?
O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
“Work apace, apace, apace,...
It was upon an April morn,
While yet the frost lay hoar,
We heard Lord James’s bugle-horn
Sound by the rocky shore.
Then down we went, a hundred knights,
All in our dark array,
And flung our armor in the ships
That rode within the bay.
We spoke not as the shore grew less,
But gazed in silence back,
...
My heart ’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart ’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe.
My heart ’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birthplace of valor, the country of worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of...
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
So was it when my life began,
So is it now I am a man,
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
