Fairy spirits of the breeze—
Frailer nothing is than these.
Fancies born we know not where—
In the heart or in the air;
Wandering echoes blown unsought
From far crystal peaks of thought;
Shadows, fading at the dawn,
Ghosts of feeling dead and gone:
Alas! Are all fair things that live
Still lovely and still fugitive?
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National Anthem
By H. W. L——, of Cambridge
BACK in the years when Phlagstaff, the Dane, was monarch
Over the sea-ribbed land of the fleet-footed Norsemen,
Once there went forth young Ursa to gaze at the heavens,—
Ursa, the noblest of all Vikings and horsemen.Musing he sat in his stirrups and viewed the horizon,
Where the Aurora... -
If I might see another Spring
I'd not plant summer flowers and wait:
I'd have my crocuses at once,
My leafless pink mezereons,
My chill-veined snowdrops, choicer yet
My white or azure violet,
Leaf-nested primrose; anything
To blow at once not late.
If I might see...If all the year was summer time,
And all the aim of life
Was just to lilt on like a rhyme,
Then I would be your wife.
If all the days were August days,
And crowned with golden weather,
How happy then through green-clad ways
We two could stray together!
If all the...I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree
And wore them all that evening in my hair:
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there.
With dangling basket all along the grass
As I had come I went the selfsame track:
My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass
...They drift down the hall together;
He smiles in her lifted eyes;
Like waves of that mighty river,
The strains of the "Danube" rise.
They float on its rhythmic measure
Like leaves on a summer-stream;
And here, in this scene of pleasure,
I bury my sweet, dead...Come, cuddle your head on my shoulder, dear,
Your head like the golden-rod,
And we will go sailing away from here
To the beautiful Land of Nod.
Away from life's hurry and flurry and worry,
Away from earth's shadows and gloom,
To a world of fair weather we'll float off together,
Where roses...I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
...My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
...MORAL.
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
...