“o Mary, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
Across the sands o’ Dee!”
The western wind was wild and dank wi’ foam,
And all alone went she.
The creeping tide came up along the sand,
And o’er and o’er the sand,
And round and round the sand,
...
Three fishers went sailing out into the west,—
Out into the west as the sun went down;
Each thought of the woman who loved him the best,
And the children stood watching them out of the town;
For men must work, and women must weep;
And there ’s little to earn, and many to keep,
Though the harbor bar be moaning.
Three wives sat up...
[Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son of the Admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the Battle of the Nile) after the ship had taken fire and all the guns had been abandoned, and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.]
THE BOY stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but him had fled;
The flame that...
It was the schooner Hesperus
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.
Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.
The skipper he stood beside the helm;...
“ho, there! Fisherman, hold your hand!
Tell me, what is that far away,—
There, where over the isle of sand
Hangs the mist-cloud sullen and gray?
See! it rocks with a ghastly life,
Rising and rolling through clouds of spray,
Right in the midst of the breakers’ strife,—
Tell me what is it, Fisherman, pray?”
“That, good sir...
Silence. A while ago
Shrieks went up piercingly;
But now is the ship gone down;
Good ship, well manned, was she.
There ’s a raft that ’s a chance of life for one,
This day upon the sea.
A chance for one of two—
Young, strong, are he and he,
Just in the manhood prime,
The comelier, verily,
For...
From the Norwegian by Nathan Haskell Dole
THE PRINCESS sat lone in her maiden bower,
The lad blew his horn at the foot of the tower.
“Why playest thou alway? Be silent, I pray,
It fetters my thoughts that would flee far away,
As the sun goes down.”
In her maiden bower sat the Princess forlorn,
The lad had ceased to play on his...
O Saw ye not fair Ines? she ’s gone into the west,
To dazzle when the sun is down, and rob the world of rest;
She took our daylight with her, the smiles that we love best,
With morning blushes on her cheek, and pearls upon her breast.
O turn again, fair Ines, before the fall of night,
For fear the moon should shine alone, and stars unrivalled bright;...
She wanders in the April woods,
That glisten with the fallen shower;
She leans her face against the buds,
She stops, she stoops, she plucks a flower.
She feels the ferment of the hour:
She broodeth when the ringdove broods;
The sun and flying clouds have power
Upon her cheek and changing moods.
She cannot think she is...
A Pensive photograph
Watches me from the shelf—
Ghost of old love, and half
Ghost of myself!
How the dear waiting eyes
Watch me and love me yet—
Sad home of memories,
Her waiting eyes!
Ghost of old love, wronged ghost,
Return: though all the pain
Of all once loved, long lost,
Come back again...
