Chapter II

’Tis true,—in other days
Have I unbarred the door;
He knows the walks and ways
Love has been here before.

Love blest and love accurst
Was here in days long past;
This time is not the first,
But this time is the last.

_157. London Poets_

They trod the streets and squares where now I tread,
With weary hearts, a little while ago;
When, thin and grey, the melancholy snow
Clung to the leafless branches overhead;
Or when the smoke-veil’d sky grew stormy-red
In Autumn; with a re-arisen woe
Wrestled, what time the passionate spring-winds blow;
And paced scorch’d stones in summer. They are dead.

The sorrow of their souls to them did seem
As real as mine to me, as permanent.
To-day—it is the shadow of a dream,
The half-forgotten breath of breezes spent.
So shall another soothe his woe supreme—
_No more he comes, who this way came and went._

DORA SIGERSON SHORTER

1866-1918

_158. Sixteen Dead Men_

Hark! in the still night. Who goes there?
‘_Fifteen dead men._’ Why do they wait?
‘_Hasten, comrade, death is so fair._’
Now comes their Captain through the dim gate.

Sixteen dead men! What on their sword?
‘_A nation’s honour proud do they bear._’
What on their bent heads? ‘_God’s holy word;_
_All of their nation’s heart blended in prayer._’

Sixteen dead men! What makes their shroud?
‘_All of their nation’s love wraps them around._’
Where do their bodies lie, brave and so proud?
‘_Under the gallows-tree in prison-ground._’

Sixteen dead men! Where do they go?
‘_To join their regiment where Sarsfield leads;_
_Wolfe Tone and Emmet, too, well do they know._
_There shall they bivouac, telling great deeds._’

Sixteen dead men! Shall they return?
‘_Yea, they shall come again, breath of our breath._
_They on our nation’s hearth made old fires burn._
_Guard her unconquered soul, strong in their death._’

_159. Ireland_

’Twas the dream of a God,
And the mould of His hand,
That you shook ’neath this stroke,
That you trembled and broke
To this beautiful land.

Here He loosed from His hold
A brown tumult of wings,
Till the wind on the sea
Bore the strange melody
Of an island that sings.

He made you all fair,
You in purple and gold,
You in silver and green,
Till no eye that has seen
Without love can behold.

I have left you behind
In the path of the past,
With the white breath of flowers,
With the best of God’s hours,
I have left you at last.

ALICE MEYNELL

_160. In Manchester Square (In memoriam T. H.)_

The paralytic man has dropped in death
The crossing-sweeper’s brush to which he clung,
One-handed, twisted, dwarfed, scanted of breath,
Although his hair was young.

I saw this year the winter vines of France,
Dwarfed, twisted, goblins in the frosty drouth,
Gnarled, crippled, blackened little stems askance,
On long hills to the South.

Great green and golden hands of leaves ere long
Shall proffer clusters in that vineyard wide.
And oh! his might, his sweet, his wine, his song,
His stature, since he died!

_161. Christ in the Universe_

With this ambiguous earth
His dealings have been told us. These abide:
The signal to a maid, the human birth,
The lesson, and the young Man crucified.

But not a star of all
The innumerable host of stars has heard
How He administered this terrestrial ball.
Our race have kept their Lord’s entrusted Word.

Of His earth-visiting feet
None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,
The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet,
Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.

No planet knows that this
Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,
Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,
Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.

Nor, in our little day,
May His devices with the heavens be guessed,
His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way
Or His bestowals there be manifest.

But in the eternities,
Doubtless we shall compare together, hear
A million alien Gospels, in what guise
He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.

O, be prepared, my soul!
To read the inconceivable, to scan
The countless forms of God those stars unroll
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.

_162. Renouncement_

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight—
The thought of thee—and in the blue Heaven’s height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.

Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden tho’ bright;
Yet it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.

But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,

Must doff my will as raiment laid away,—
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

_163. A Letter from a Girl to Her own Old Age_

Listen, and when thy hand this paper presses,
O time-worn woman, think of her who blesses
What thy thin fingers touch, with her caresses.

O mother, for the weight of years that break thee!
O daughter, for slow time must yet awake thee,
And from the changes of my heart must make thee.

O fainting traveller, morn is grey in heaven.
Dost thou remember how the clouds were driven?
And are they calm about the fall of even?

Pause near the ending of thy long migration,
For this one sudden hour of desolation
Appeals to one hour of thy meditation.

Suffer, O silent one, that I remind thee
Of the great hills that stormed the sky behind thee,
Of the wild winds of power that have resigned thee.

Know that the mournful plain where thou must wander
Is but a grey and silent world, but ponder
The misty mountains of the morning yonder.

Listen:—the mountain winds with rain were fretting,
And sudden gleams the mountain-tops besetting.
I cannot let thee fade to death, forgetting.

What part of this wild heart of mine I know not
Will follow with thee where the great winds blow not,
And where the young flowers of the mountain grow not.

Yet let my letter with thy lost thoughts in it
Tell what the way was when thou didst begin it,
And win with thee the goal when thou shalt win it.

Oh, in some hour of thine my thoughts shall guide thee.
Suddenly, though time, darkness, silence, hide thee,
This wind from thy lost country flits beside thee,—

Telling thee: all thy memories moved the maiden,
With thy regrets was morning over-shaden,
With sorrow, thou hast left, her life was laden.

But whither shall my thoughts turn to pursue thee?
Life changes, and the years and days renew thee.
Oh, Nature brings my straying heart unto thee;

Her winds will join us, with their constant kisses
Upon the evening as the morning tresses,
Her summers breathe the same unchanging blisses.

And we, so altered in our shifting phases,
Track one another ’mid the many mazes
By the eternal child-breath of the daisies.

I have not writ this letter of divining
To make a glory of thy silent pining,
A triumph of thy mute and strange declining.

Only one youth, and the bright life was shrouded.
Only one morning, and the day was clouded.
And one old age with all regrets is crowded.

Oh hush, oh hush! Thy tears my words are steeping.
Oh hush, hush, hush! So full, the fount of weeping?
Poor eyes, so quickly moved, so near to sleeping?

Pardon the girl; such strange desires beset her.
Poor woman, lay aside the mournful letter
That breaks thy heart; the one who wrote, forget her:

The one who now thy faded features guesses,
With filial fingers thy grey hair caresses,
With morning tears thy mournful twilight blesses.

_164. Chimes_

Brief, on a flying night,
From the shaken tower,
A flock of bells take flight,
And go with the hour.

Like birds from the cote to the gales,
Abrupt—O hark!
A fleet of bells set sails,
And go to the dark.

Sudden the cold airs swing.
Alone, aloud,
A verse of bells takes wing
And flies with the cloud.

MARGARET L. WOODS

_165. To the Forgotten Dead_

To the forgotten dead,
Come, let us drink in silence ere we part.
To every fervent yet resolvèd heart
That brought its tameless passion and its tears,
Renunciation and laborious years,
To lay the deep foundations of our race,
To rear its mighty ramparts overhead
And light its pinnacles with golden grace.
To the unhonoured dead.

To the forgotten dead,
What dauntless hands were stretched to grasp the rein
Of Fate and hurl into the void again
Her thunder-hoofèd horses, rushing blind
Earthward along the courses of the wind.
Among the stars along the wind in vain
Their souls were scattered and their blood was shed,
And nothing, nothing of them doth remain.
To the thrice-perished dead.

_166. Genius Loci_

Peace, Shepherd, peace! What boots it singing on?
Since long ago grace-giving Phoebus died,
And all the train that loved the stream-bright side
Of the poetic mount with him are gone
Beyond the shores of Styx and Acheron,
In unexplorèd realms of night to hide.
The clouds that show their shadows far and wide
Are all of Heaven that visits Helicon.

Yet here, where never muse or god did haunt,
Still may some nameless power of Nature stray,
Pleased with the reedy stream’s continual chant
And purple pomp of these broad fields in May.
The shepherds meet him where he herds the kine,
And careless pass him by whose is the gift divine.

_167. A Ballade of the Night_

Far from the earth the deep-descended day
Lies dim in hidden sanctuaries of sleep.
The wingèd winds couched on the threshold keep
Uneasy watch, and still expectant stay
The voice that bids their rushing host delay
No more to rise, and with tempestuous power
Rend the wide veil of heaven. Long watching they
Sigh in the silence of the midnight hour.

Hark! where the forests slow in slumber sway
Below the blue wild ridges, steep on steep,
Thronging the sky—how shuddering as they leap
The impetuous waters go their fated way,
And mourn in mountain chasms, and as they stray
By many a magic town and marble tower,
As those that still unreconciled obey,
Sigh in the silence of the midnight hour.

Listen—the quiet darkness doth array
The toiling earth, and there is time to weep—
A deeper sound is mingled with the sweep
Of streams and winds that whisper far away.
Oh listen! where the populous cities lay
Low in the lap of sleep their ancient dower,
The changeless spirit of our changeful clay
Sighs in the silence of the midnight hour.

Sigh, watcher for a dawn remote and grey,
Mourn, journeyer to an undesirèd deep,
Eternal sower, thou that shalt not reap,
Immortal, whom the plagues of God devour.
Mourn—’tis the hour when thou wert wont to pray.
Sigh in the silence of the midnight hour.

ROSE TERRY COOKE

_168. Arachne_

I watch her in the corner there,
As, restless, bold, and unafraid,
She slips and floats along the air
Till all her subtile house is made.

Her home, her bed, her daily food,
All from that hidden store she draws;
She fashions it and knows it good,
By instinct’s strong and sacred laws.

No tenuous threads to weave her nest,
She seeks and gathers there or here,
But spins it from her faithful breast,
Renewing still, till leaves are sere.

Then, worn with toil and tired of life,
In vain her shining traps are set.
The frost hath hushed the insect strife
And gilded flies her charm forget.

But swinging in the snares she spins,
She sways to every wintry wind:
Her joy, her toil, her errand done,
Her corse the sport of storms unkind.

Poor sister of the spinster clan,
I too from out my store within
My daily life and living plan,
My home, my rest, my pleasure spin.

I know thy heart when heartless hands
Sweep all that hard-earned web away,
Destroy its pearled and glittering bands,
And leave thee homeless by the way.

I know thy peace when all is done,
Each anchored thread, each tiny knot,
Soft shining in the autumn sun;
A sheltered, silent, tranquil lot.

I know what thou hast never known,—
Sad presage to a soul allowed—
That not for life I spin, alone,
But day by day I spin my shroud.

VIOLET JACOB

_169. Tam i’ the Kirk_

O Jean, my Jean, when the bell ca’s the congregation
Owre valley an’ hill wi’ the ding frae its iron mou’,
When a’ body’s thochts is set on his ain salvation,
Mine’s set on you.

There’s a reid rose lies on the Buik o’ the Word afore ye
That was growin’ braw on its bush at the keek o’ day,
But the lad that pu’d yon flower i’ the mornin’s glory,
He canna pray.

He canna pray; but there’s nane i’ the kirk will heed him
Whaur he sits sae still his lane at the side o’ the wa’,
For nane but the reid rose kens what my lassie gie’d him—
It an’ us twa!

He canna sing for the sang that his ain he’rt raises,
He canna see for the mist that’s afore his een,
An’ a voice drouns the hale o’ the psalms an’ the paraphrases,
Cryin’ ‘Jean, Jean, Jean!’

ANNA BUNSTON DE BARY

_170. The Snowdrop_

Close to the sod
There can be seen
A thought of God
In white and green.

Unmarred, unsoiled
It cleft the clay,
Serene, unspoiled
It views the day.

It is so holy
And yet so lowly.
Would you enjoy
Its grace and dower
And not destroy
The living flower?
Then you must, please,
Fall on your knees.

MOIRA O’NEILL

_171. The Rachray Man_

Och, what was it got me at all that time
To promise I’d marry a Rachray man?
An’ now he’ll not listen to rason or rhyme,
He’s striving to hurry me all that he can.
‘Come on, an’ ye _be_ to come on!’ say he,
‘Ye’re bound for the Island to live wi’ me.’

See Rachray Island beyont in the bay,
And the dear knows what they be doin’ out there
But fishin’ and fightin’ and tearin’ away,
An’ who’s to hinder, an’ what do they care?
The goodness can tell what ’ud happen to me
When Rachray ’ud have me, _anee, anee_!

I might have took Pether from over the hill,
A dacent poacher, the kind, poor boy:
Could I keep the ould places about me still
I’d never set foot out of sweet Ballyvoy.
My sorra on Rachray, the could sea-caves,
An’ blackneck divers, an’ weary ould waves!

I’ll never win back now, whatever may fall,
So give me good luck, for ye’ll see me no more;
Sure an Island man is the mischief an’ all—
An’ me that was never married before!
Oh think o’ my fate when ye dance at a fair,
In Rachray, there’s no Christianity there.

_172. The Grand Match_

Dennis was hearty when Dennis was young,
High was his step in the jig that he sprung,
_He_ had the looks an’ the sootherin’ tongue—
An’ he wanted a girl wid a fortune.

Nannie was grey-eyed an’ Nannie was tall,
Fair was the face hid inunder her shawl,
Troth! an’ he liked her the best o’ them all—
But she’d not a _traneen_ to her fortune.

He be to look out for a likelier match,
So he married a girl that was counted a catch,
An’ as ugly as need be, the dark little patch—
But that was a trifle, he told her.

She brought him her good-lookin’ gold to admire,
She brought him her good-lookin’ cows to his byre,
But far from good-lookin’ she sat by his fire—
An’ paid him that ‘thrifle’ he tould her.

He met pretty Nan when a month had gone by,
An’ he thought, like a fool, to get round her he’d try;
Wid a smile on her lip an’ a spark in her eye,
She said, ‘How is the woman that owns ye?’

Och, never be tellin’ the life that he’s led!
Sure, many’s the night that he’ll wish himself dead,
For the sake of two eyes in a pretty girl’s head,—
An’ the tongue of the woman that owns him.

FRANCES CORNFORD

_173. Autumn Evening_

The shadows flickering, the daylight dying,
And I upon the old red sofa lying,
The great brown shadows leaping up the wall,
The sparrows twittering; and that is all.

I thought to send my soul to far-off lands,
Where fairies scamper on the windy sands,
Or where the autumn rain comes drumming down
On huddled roofs in an enchanted town.

But O, my sleepy soul, it will not roam,
It is too happy and too warm at home:
With just the shadows leaping up the wall,
The sparrows twittering; and that is all.

_174. Autumn Morning at Cambridge_

I ran out in the morning, when the air was clean and new,
And all the grass was glittering and grey with autumn dew,
I ran out to the apple tree and pulled an apple down,
And all the bells were ringing in the old grey town.
Down in the town, off the bridges and the grass
They are sweeping up the leaves to let the people pass,
Sweeping up the old leaves, golden-reds and browns,
While the men go to lecture with the wind in their gowns

_175. The Watch_

I wakened on my hot, hard bed;
Upon the pillow lay my head;
Beneath the pillow I could hear
My little watch was ticking clear.
I thought the throbbing of it went
Like my continual discontent,
I thought it said in every tick:
I am so sick, so sick, so sick;
O death, come quick, come quick, come quick,
Come quick, come quick, come quick, come quick.

EVA GORE-BOOTH

_176. The Little Waves of Breffny_

The grand road from the mountain goes shining to the sea,
And there is traffic in it, and many a horse and cart;
But the little roads of Cloonagh are dearer far to me,
And the little roads of Cloonagh go rambling through my heart.

A great storm from the ocean goes shouting o’er the hill,
And there is glory in it and terror on the wind;
But the haunted air of twilight is very strange and still,
And the little winds of twilight are dearer to my mind.

The great waves of the Atlantic sweep storming on their way,
Shining green and silver with the hidden herring shoal;
But the little waves of Breffny have drenched my heart in spray,
And the little waves of Breffny go stumbling through my soul.

KATHARINE TYNAN HINKSON

_177. Sheep and Lambs_

All in the April morning,
April airs were abroad,
The sheep with their little lambs
Pass’d me by on the road.

The sheep with their little lambs
Pass’d me by on the road;
All in an April evening
I thought on the Lamb of God.

The lambs were weary and crying
With a weak human cry,
I thought on the Lamb of God
Going meekly to die.

Up in the blue, blue mountains
Dewy pastures are sweet:
Rest for the little bodies,
Rest for the little feet.

Rest for the Lamb of God
Up on the hill-top green,
Only a cross of shame
Two stark crosses between.

All in the April evening,
April airs were abroad;
I saw the sheep with their lambs,
And thought on the Lamb of God.

ROSE MACAULAY

_178. The Devourers_

Cambridge town is a beleaguered city;
For south and north, like a sea,
There beats on its gates, without haste or pity,
The downs and the fen country.

Cambridge towers, so old, so wise,
They were builded but yesterday,
Watched by sleepy gray secret eyes
That smiled as at children’s play.

Roads south of Cambridge run into the waste,
Where learning and lamps are not,
And the pale downs tumble, blind, chalk-faced,
And the brooding churches squat.

Roads north of Cambridge march through a plain
Level like the traitor sea.
It will swallow its ships, and turn and smile again,
The insatiable fen country.

Lest the downs and the fens should eat Cambridge up,
And its towers be tossed and thrown,
And its rich wine drunk from its broken cup,
And its beauty no more known—

Let us come, you and I, where the roads run blind,
But beyond the transient city,
That our love, mingling with earth, may find
Her imperishable heart of pity.

SYLVIA LYND

_179. Hunting Song_

The hunt is up! the hunt is up!
It sounds from hill to hill,
It pierces to the hidden place
Where we are lying still;
And one of us the quarry is,
And one of us must go,
When through the arches of the wood
We hear the dread horn blow.

A huntsman bold is Master Death,
And reckless doth he ride,
And terror’s hounds with bleeding fangs
Go baying at his side;
And will it be a milk-white doe,
A little dappled fawn,
Or will it be an antlered stag
Must face the icy dawn?

Or will it be a golden fox
Must leap from out his lair,
Or where the trailing shadows pass
A merry romping hare?
The hunt is up, the horn is loud
By plain and covert side,
And we must run alone, alone,
When Death abroad doth ride.

But idle ’tis to crouch in fear,
Since death will find you out;
Then up and hold your head erect,
And pace the wood about,
And swim the stream, and leap the wall,
And race the starry mead,
Nor feel the bright teeth in your flank
Till they be there indeed.

For in the secret hearts of men
Are peace and joy at one.
There is a pleasant land where stalks
No darkness in the sun,
And through the arches of the wood
Do break, like silver foam,
Young laughter, and the noise of flutes,
And voices singing home.

INDEX OF AUTHORS

The figures refer to the numbers of the poems

Anonymous, 10.

Askewe, Anne, 1.

Baillie, Lady Grisel, 48, 49.

Baillie, Joanna, 81-84.

Barbauld, Anna Laetitia, 74, 75.

Barnard, Lady Anne (Lindsay), 79.

Behn, Aphra, 20-24.

Blamire, Susanna, 77.

Bradstreet, Anne, 7, 8.

Brontë, Anne, 128, 129.

Brontë, Charlotte, 116-118.

Brontë, Emily, 119-125.

Brooke, Frances, 76.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 101-113.

Carew, Lady Elizabeth, 4.

Carter, Elizabeth, 65.

Cary, Phoebe, 130.

Chudleigh, Mary, Lady, 38, 39.

Cockburn, Alison, 61.

Cockburn, Catharine, 55.

Coleridge, Mary Elizabeth, 149-151.

Coleridge, Sara, 100.

Collins, Ann, 11, 12.

Cooke, Rose Terry, 168.

Cornford, Frances, 173-175.

Currie, Lady (_Violet Fane_), 146.

De Bary, Anna Bunston, 170.

Dufferin, Helen Selina, Marchioness of, 114.

Elizabeth, Queen, 2, 3.

Elliot, Jane, 70.

_Ephelia_, 25-31.

Fanshawe, Catherine M., 85.

Gore-Booth, Eva, 176.

Grahame, Jenny, 71.

Grant, Anne, of Laggan, 93.

Greville, Fanny, 59.

Hemans, Felicia Dorothea, 97-99.

Hinkson, Katharine Tynan, 177.

Howe, Julia Ward, 126, 127.

Hunter, Annie, 73.

Ingelow, Jean, 145.

Jacob, Violet, 169.

Jones, Mary, 69.

Killigrew, Anne, 34-36.

Lamb, Mary, 86.

Lawless, Hon. Emily, 147.

Leapor, Mary, 66-68.

Levy, Amy, 152-157.

Lynd, Sylvia, 179.

Macaulay, Rose, 178.

Madan, Judith, 64.

Masters, Mary, 62, 63.

Meynell, Alice, 160-164.

Mollineux, Mary, 32, 33.

Monk, Hon. Mary, 50-52.

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 56-58.

Nairne, Caroline, Lady, 87-90.

Newcastle, Margaret, Duchess of, 9.

Norton, Hon. Caroline Elizabeth Sarah, 115.

O’Neill, Henrietta, Lady, 80.

O’Neill, Moira, 171, 172.

Opie, Amelia, 94.

Oxlie, Mary, of Morpet, 5.

Pagan, Isobel, 72.

Parnell, Fanny, 148.

Philips, Katherine (_Orinda_), 13-17.

Pilkington, Laetitia, 60.

Rossetti, Christina, 131-144.

Rowe, Elizabeth (Singer), 53, 54.

Shorter, Dora (Sigerson), 158, 159.

Smith, Charlotte, 78.

Southey, Caroline, 95.

Taylor, Mrs., 37.

Wharton, Anne, Marchioness of, 18, 19.

Willard, Emma (Hart), 96.

Williams, Helen Maria, 91, 92.

Winchilsea, Anne, Countess of, 40-47.

Woods, Margaret L., 165-167.

Wroth, Lady Mary, 6.

INDEX OF FIRST LINES

A child’s a plaything for an hour, 86

A constancy in love I’ll prise, 21

A thousand martyrs I have made, 24

About the little chambers of my heart, 150

Ah, gaze not on those eyes! forbear, 55

Alas, how hard a thing, 33

Alas! my son, you little know, 71

All in the April morning, 177

Am I a stone, and not a sheep, 135

And ye shall walk in silk attire, 77

Behold, ambitious lump of clay refined, 32

Best of thy sex! if sacred friendship can, 30

Brief, on a flying night, 164

Ca’ the yowes to the knowes, 72

Calm on the bosom of thy God, 99

Cambridge town is a beleaguered city, 178

Cease, cease, Aminta, to complain, 22

Children of night! unfolding meekly, slowly, 97

Christ was the Word that spake it, 3

Close to the sod, 170

Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee, 119

Come not in terrors clad, to claim, 95

Come to me in the silence of the night, 133

Cou’d our first father, at his toilsome plough, 44

Death is a leveller; beauty and kings, 14

Deep in the grass outstretched I lie, 154

Dennis was hearty when Dennis was young, 172

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, 110

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?, 138

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away, 121

Far from the earth the deep-descended day, 167

Farewell, ungrateful man, sail to some land, 28

Flowers to the Fair! to you these flowers I bring, 74

Forbear, bold youth, all’s Heaven here, 16

Forgo the charming Muses! No, in spite, 54

Give me there (since Heaven has shown, 43

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand, 105

Green is the plane-tree in the square, 152

Hark! in the still night. Who goes there?, 158

He saw my heart’s woe, discovered my soul’s anguish, 116

Her mouth, which a smile, 76

Here sleeps the Queen; this is the royal bed, 8

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways, 108

How hardly I conceal’d my tears!, 19

How much of paper’s spoil’d! what floods of ink!, 69

How strongly does my passion flow, 23

I ask no kind return in Love, 59

I did not live until this time, 13

I do not love thee!—no! I do not love thee!, 115

I mind me, in the days departed, 112

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong, 162

I never rested on the Muses’ bed, 5

I ran out in the morning, when the air was clean and new, 174

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless, 113

I thought once how Theocritus had sung, 103

I took my heart in my hand, 136

I wakened on my hot, hard bed, 175

I was alone, for those I loved, 129

I watch her in the corner there, 168

If trifling Hope has any room to plead, 67

I’m sittin’ on the stile, Mary, 114

I’m wearin’ awa’, John, 87

In such a night, when every louder wind, 42

In two large columns on thy motley page, 56

Is it to me, this sad lamenting strain?, 57

I’ve heard them lilting, at our ewe-milking, 70

I’ve seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling, 61

Jean, fetch that heap of tangled yarn, 93

Life! I know not what thou art, 75

Listen, and when thy hand this paper presses, 163

Lost in despair, distracted and forlorn, 53

Love, a child, is ever crying, 6

Love in fantastic triumph sat, 20

Loving friend, the gift of one, 111

Lyke as the armed knyght, 1

‘Mary mother, shield us! Say, what men are ye, 147

Meek Twilight! soften the declining day, 91

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, 126

My heart is like a singing bird, 141

My letters! all dead paper, ... mute and white!, 107

My Lord, my Saviour, and my God, 60

My mother bids me bind my hair, 73

My songs th’ attentive nymphs with pleasure hear, 63

Next heaven, my vows to thee, O sacred Muse!, 35

No coward soul is mine, 125

Now in thy dazzled, half-oped eye, 81

O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes, 137

O ever skill’d to wear the form we love, 92

O God! if this indeed be all, 128

O Jean, my Jean, when the bell ca’s the congregation, 169

O King of Terrors, whose unbounded sway, 47

O Love, how thou art tired out with rhyme!, 9

O sleep, my babe, hear not the rippling wave, 100

O thou, who labour’st in this rugged mine, 64

Observe the weary birds ere night be done, 15

Och, what was it got me at all that time, 171

O’er this marble drop a tear, 51

Of all companions I would choose to shun, 68

Often rebuked, yet always back returning, 124

Oh cruel Fate, when wilt thou weary be?, 31

Oh, love! thou that shelterest some, 146

Oh, the auld house, the auld house!, 88

‘Oh where are you going with your love-locks flowing, 142

One sweetly solemn thought, 130

Peace, Shepherd, peace! What boots it singing on?, 166

Press gently on him, earth, and all around, 50

Remember me when I am gone away, 139

Rocked in the cradle of the deep, 96

Search but those strains, you think so much excel, 62

Shall mine eyes behold thy glory, O my country?, 148

She stands as pale as Parian statues stand, 134

She, who so long has lain, 156

Silent is the house: all are laid asleep, 120

Speak of the North! A lonely moor, 118

Still let my tyrants know, I am not doom’d to wear, 122

Strephon hath fashion, wit, and youth, 37

Strephon I saw, and started at the sight, 25

Strephon, whose person ev’ry grace, 45

Such is the force of each created thing, 12

Sweet age of blest delusion! blooming boys, 80

Ten years ago it seemed impossible, 143

The boy stood on the burning deck, 98

The chough and crow to roost are gone, 84

The clouds had made a crimson crown, 149

The doubt of future foes, exiles my present joy, 2

The ewe-buchtin’s bonnie, baith e’enin’ and morn, 49

The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove, 78

The gowan glitters on the sward, 83

The grand old road from the mountain goes shining to the sea, 176

The human heart has hidden treasures, 117

The hunt is up! the hunt is up!, 179

The irresponsive silence of the land, 132

The old mayor climbed the belfry tower, 145

The paralytic man has dropped in death, 160

The shadows flickering, the daylight dying, 173

The sky is silver-grey; the long, 153

The Winter being over, 11

There ance was a may, and she lo’ed na men, 48

There was an eye, whose partial glance, 94

They trod the streets and squares where now I tread, 157

This book by any yet unread, 7

Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man, 101

Thou who dost all my worldly thoughts employ, 52

Though Fortune have so far from me removed, 29

Though infant years no pompous honours claim, 65

’Tis not enough for one that is a wife, 4

To the forgotten dead, 165

Too late for love, too late for joy, 140

Trail all your pikes, dispirit every drum, 40

True genius, but true woman! dost deny, 102

Twice forty months of wedlock I did stay, 17

’Twas in heaven pronounced—it was mutter’d in hell, 85

’Twas the dream of a God, 159

Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!, 104

Wanton drole, whose harmless play, 82

We are Diana’s virgin train, 34

We were young, we were merry, we were very very wise, 151

Weary, at last, of the Pindarick way, 46

Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms, 127

Welcome, dear wanderer, once more!, 66

Well, some may hate, and some may scorn, 123

Wha’ll buy my caller herrin’?, 89

What was he doing, the great god Pan, 109

What would I give for a heart of flesh to warm me through, 144

When all alone in some belov’d retreat, 38

When from the world I shall be ta’en, 10

When I am dead, few friends attend my hearse, 36

When I am dead, my dearest, 131

When our two souls stand up erect and strong, 106

When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at hame, 79

When the tempestuous sea did foam and roar, 18

When to the Under-world despis’d he goes, 41

Where drowsy sound of college-chimes, 155

Why, Damon, why, why, why so pressing?, 39

Why do I love? go ask the glorious sun, 27

With this ambiguous earth, 161

Would you be young again?, 90

You little know the heart that you advise, 58

You wrong me, Strephon, when you say, 26

PRINTED IN ENGLAND
AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS