A Noisette on my garden path
An ever-swaying shadow throws;
But if I pluck it strolling by,
I pluck the shadow with the rose.
Just near enough my heart you stood
To shadow it,—but was it fair
In him, who plucked and bore you off,
To leave your shadow lingering there?
Has summer come without the rose,
Or left the bird behind?
Is the blue changed above thee,
O world! or am I blind?
Will you change every flower that grows,
Or only change this spot,
Where she who said, I love thee,
Now says, I love thee not?
The skies seemed true above thee,
The rose true on the tree;
...
A Lay of Leadenhall
[A singular man, named Nathaniel Bentley, for many years kept a large hardware-shop in Leadenhall Street, London. He was best know as Dirty Dick (Dick, for alliteration’s sake, probably), and his place of business as the Dirty Warehouse. He died about the year 1809. These verses accord with the accounts respecting himself and his house.]
IN a dirty old...
Wheel me into the sunshine,
Wheel me into the shadow,
There must be leaves on the woodbine,
Is the king-cup crowned in the meadow?
Wheel me down to the meadow,
Down to the little river,
In sun or in shadow
I shall not dazzle or shiver,
I shall be happy anywhere,
Every breath of the morning air
Makes me throb and...
I.
an Empty sky, a world of heather,
Purple of foxglove, yellow of broom:
We two among them wading together,
Shaking out honey, treading perfume.
Crowds of bees are giddy with clover,
Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet:
Crowds of larks at their matins hang over,
Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.
...
From the French by Louise Stuart Costello
FAREWELL! since vain is all my care,
Far, in some desert rude,
I ’ll hide my weakness, my despair:
And, ’midst my solitude,
I ’ll pray, that, should another move thee,
He may as fondly, truly love thee.
Adieu, bright eyes, that were my heaven!
Adieu, soft cheek, where summer blooms...
The Spinner twisted her slender thread
As she sat and spun:
“The earth and the heavens are mine,” she said,
“And the moon and sun;
Into my web the sunlight goes,
And the breath of May,
And the crimson life of the new-blown rose
That was born to-day.”
The spinner sang in the hush of noon
And her song was low:
“Ah...
TAKE, 1 O, take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, like break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn;
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, but sealed in vain.
Hide, O, hide those hills of snow
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are yet of those that...
I Loved thee once, I ’ll love no more,
Thine be the grief as is the blame;
Thou art not what thou wast before,
What reason I should be the same?
He that can love unloved again,
Hath better store of love than brain:
God sends me love my debts to pay,
While unthrifts fool their love away.
Nothing could have my love...
From the Greek by Robert Bland
SHE, who but late in beauty’s flower was seen,
Proud of her auburn curls and noble mien—
Who froze my hopes and triumphed in my fears,
Now sheds her graces in the waste of years.
Changed to unlovely is that breast of snow,
And dimmed her eye, and wrinkled is her brow;
And querulous the voice by time repressed...
