All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Oft in my making dreams do I
Live o’er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruined tower.
The moonshine stealing o’er the scene
Had blended with the...
We pledged our hearts, my love and I,—
I in my arms the maiden clasping;
I could not tell the reason why,
But, O, I trembled like an aspen!
Her father’s love she bade me gain;
I went, and shook like any reed!
I strove to act the man,—in vain!
We had exchanged our hearts indeed.
Duncan Gray cam’ here to woo—
Ha, ha! the wooing o’t!
On blythe Yule night when we were fou—
Ha, ha! the wooing o’t!
Maggie coose her head fu’ high,
Looke asklent and unco skeigh,
Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh—
Ha, ha! the wooing o’t!
Duncan fleeched and Duncan prayed—
Ha, ha! the...
From “The Vicar of Wakefield”
“TURN, gentle Hermit of the dale,
And guide my lonely way
To where yon taper cheers the vale
With hospitable ray.
“For here forlorn and lost I tread,
With fainting steps and slow;
Where wilds, immeasurably spread,
Seem lengthening as I go.”
“Forbear, my son,” the Hermit cries,...
Let not woman e’er complain
Of inconstancy in love;
Let not woman e’er complain
Fickle man is apt to rove;
Look abroad through Nature’s range,
Nature’s mighty law is change;
Ladies, would it not be strange
Man should then a monster prove?
Mark the winds, and mark the skies;
Ocean’s ebb and ocean’s flow;
...
Lady Heron’s Song from “Marmion”
Canto V.
O, YOUNG Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;
And, save his good broadsword, he weapon had none,
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.
He...
Come, all ye jolly shepherds
That whistle through the glen,
I ’ll tell ye of a secret
That courtiers dinna ken:
What is the greatest bliss
That the tongue o’ man can name?
’T is to woo a bonny lassie
When the kye comes hame!
When the kye comes hame,
When the kye comes hame,
’Tween the gloaming and...
Of all the girls that are so smart
There ’s none like pretty Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
There is no lady in the land
Is half so sweet as Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
Her father he makes cabbage-nets,
And through the streets does cry ’...
How sweet the answer Echo makes
To Music at night
When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,
And far away o’er lawns and lakes
Goes answering light!
Yet Love hath echoes truer far
And far more sweet
Than e’er, beneath the moonlight’s star,
Of horn or lute or soft guitar
The songs repeat.
’T is when the sigh,—in...
From “Irish Melodies”
O THE DAYS are gone when beauty bright
My heart’s chain wove!
When my dream of life, from morn till night,
Was love, still love!
New hope may bloom,
And days may come,
Of milder, calmer beam,
But there ’s nothing half so sweet in life
As love’s young dream!
O...
