How could I look upon the day?

They should have stabbed me where I lay,
Oriana

They should have trod me into clay,
Oriana.

O! breaking heart that will not break,
Oriana;

O! pale, pale face so sweet and meek,
Oriana.

Thou smilest, but thou dost not speak,
And then the tears run down my cheek,

Up

from my heart unto my eyes,
Oriana.

Within thy heart my arrow lies,
Oriana.

O cursed hand! oh cursed blow!

Oriana!

O happy thou that liest low,
Oriana!

All night the silence seems to flow

Beside me in my utter woe,

I walk, I dare not think of thee,

Oriana.

Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree,

I dare not die and come to thee,

Oriana.

I hear the roaring of the sea,

Oriana.

CIRCUMSTANCE.

Two children in two neighbor villages
Playing mad pranks along the heathy leas;
Two strangers meeting at a festival;

Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall;
Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease;
Two graves grass-green beside a gray church-tower,
Washed with still rains and daisy-blossomed ;
Two children in one hamlet born and bred;
So runs the round of life from hour to hour.

I would be a merman bold;

I would sit and sing the whole of the day;
I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power;
But at night I would roam abroad, and play
With the mermaids in and out of the rocks,
Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower;
And holding them back by their flowing locks,
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kissed me

Laughingly, laughingly;

And then we would wander away, away

To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high,
Chasing each other merrily.

There would be neither moon nor star;

But the wave would make music above us afar

Low thunder and light in the magic night

Neither moon nor star.

We would call aloud in the dreamy dells,
Call to each other and whoop and cry

All night, merrily, merrily;

They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells, Laughing and clapping their hands between,

All night, merrily, merrily;

But I would throw them back in mine
Turkis and agate and almondine:
Then leaping out upon them unseen,
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kissed me
Laughingly, laughingly.

O! what a happy life were mine
Under the hollow-hung ocean green!
Soft are the moss-beds under the sea;
We would live merrily, merrily.