Ere yet in Vergil I could scan or spell,
Or through the enchanted portal of that lay
Dear to old Rome had found my faltering way,
How oft with heaving breast I heard thee tell
Of horrors that the Trojan fleet befell:
How for a time they were the tempest’s prey,
And how at last into a little bay
Their boats came gliding on the peaceful...
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I would I had been island-born.
I dearly love things insular:
The coral bed, the quaint bazaar,
The palm and breadfruit never shorn,
The smoking cone that cannot char
The azure of a tropic morn,
The dancing girl in soft cymar,—
All these such lures, such wonders are—
Oh, why was I not island-born?In island crossed of...
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If this little world to-night
Suddenly should fall through space
In a hissing, headlong flight,
Shrivelling from off its face,
As it falls into the sun,
In an instant every trace
Of the little crawling things—
Ants, philosophers, and lice,
Cattle, cockroaches, and kings,
Beggars, millionaires, and mice,
... -
Very dark the autumn sky,
Dark the clouds that hurried by;
Very rough the autumn breeze
Shouting rudely to the trees.Listening, frightened, pale, and cold,
Through the withered leaves and mould
Peered a violet all in dread—
“Where, oh, where is spring?” she said.Sighed the trees, “Poor little thing!
She may... -
Once hoary Winter chanced—alas!
Alas! hys waye mistaking—
A leafless apple-tree to pass
Where Spring lay dreaming. “Fie, ye lass!
Ye lass had best he waking,”
Quoth he, and shook hys robe, and, lo!
Lo! forth didde flye a cloud of snowe.Now in ye bough an elfe there dwelte,
An elfe of wondrous powere,
That when ye... -
Under a toadstool
Crept a wee Elf,
Out of the rain,
To shelter himself.Under the toadstool,
Sound asleep,
Sat a big Dormouse
All in a heap.Trembled the wee Elf,
Frightened, and yet
Fearing to fly away
Lest he get wet.To the next shelter—
Maybe a mile!
Sudden... -
This, children, is the famed Mon-goos.
He has an ap-pe-tite ab-struse:
Strange to re-late, this crea-ture takes
A cu-ri-ous joy in eat-ing snakes—
All kinds—though, it must be con-fessed,
He likes the poi-son-ous ones the best.
From him we learn how ve-ry small
A thing can bring a-bout a Fall.
O Mon-goos, where were you that day... -
It is good to strive against wind and rain
In the keen, sweet weather that autumn brings.
The wild horse shakes not the drops from his mane,
The wild bird flicks not the wet from her wings,
In gladder fashion than I toss free
The mist-dulled gold of my bright hair’s flag,
What time the winds on their heel-wings lag,
And all the... -
The blackcaps pipe among the reeds,
And there ’ll be rain to follow;
There is a murmur as of wind
In every coign and hollow;
The wrens do chatter of their fears
While swinging on the barley-ears.Come, hurry, while there yet is time,
Pull up thy scarlet bonnet.
Now, sweetheart, as my love is thine,
There is a... -
Take all of me,—I am thine own, heart, soul,
Brain, body,—all; all that I am or dream
Is thine forever; yea, though space should teem
With thy conditions, I ’d fulfil the whole—
Were to fulfil them to be loved of thee.
Oh, love me!—were to love me but a way
To kill me—love me; so to die would be
To live forever. Let me hear thee say...