I Was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient,
I see that the word of my city is that word from of old,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb,
Rich, hemmed thick all around with...
A Granite cliff on either shore,
A highway poised in air;
Above, the wheels of traffic roar,
Below, the fleets sail fair;—
And in and out forevermore,
The surging tides of ocean pour,
And past the towers the white gulls soar,
And winds the sea-clouds bear.
O peerless this majestic street,
This road that leaps the...
Mowers, weary and brown, and blithe,
What is the word methinks ye know,
Endless over-word that the Scythe
Sings to the blades of the grass below?
Scythes that swing in the grass and clover,
Something, still, they say as they pass;
What is the word that, over and over,
Sings the Scythe to the flowers and grass?
Hush, ah...
The Sunburnt mowers are in the swath—
Swing, swing, swing!
The towering lilies loath
Tremble and totter and fall;
The meadow-rue
Dashes its tassels of golden dew;
And the keen blade sweeps o’er all—
Swing, swing, swing!
The flowers, the berries, the feathered grass,
Are thrown in a...
(Afloat)
I.
THE Red-tiled towers of the old Château,
Perched on the cliff above our bark,
Burn in the western evening glow.
The fiery spirit of Papineau
Consumes them still with its fever spark,
The red-tiled towers of the old Château!
Drift by and mark how bright they show,
And how the mullioned windows—mark!...
The Cactus towers, straight and tall,
Through fallow fields of chapparal;
And here and there, in paths apart,
A dusky peon guides his cart,
And yokes of oxen journey slow,
In Mexico.
And oft some distant tinkling tells
Of muleteers, with wagon bells
That jangle sweet across the maize,
And...
From the Latin by Sir Charles Bowen
From The “Æneid”
ÆNEAS, speaking to Dido, Queen of Carthage
FORWARD we fare,
Called to the palace of Priam by war-shouts rending the air.
Here of a truth raged battle, as though no combats beside
Reigned elsewhere, no thousands about all Ilion died.
Here we beheld in his fury the war-god; foemen the roof...
Lars Porsena of Clusium,
By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it,
And named a trysting-day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and west and south and north,
To summon his array.
East and west and south and north
The...
From the Icelandic by W. Herbert
WROTH waxed Thor, when his sleep was flown,
And he found his trusty hammer gone;
He smote his brow, his beard he shook,
The son of earth ’gan round him look;
And this the first word that he spoke:
“Now listen what I tell thee, Loke;
Which neither on earth below is known,
Nor in heaven above: my...
From the Swedish by William Strong
From the “Frithiof Saga,” Canto XI.
’T IS time to tell how Angantyr,
The earl, was seated then
High in his hall of stately fir,
Carousing with his men.
Thence he surveyed, in merry mood,
The day-car as it rolled;
Now cleaving through the purple flood,
All like a swan of gold.
