She sings no song of love's despair, She sings no lover lowly laid, No fond peculiar grief
Has ever touched or bud or leaf
Of her unblighted spring.
She sings because she needs must sing; She sings the sorrow of the air Whereof her voice is made. That night in Britain howsoe'er On any chords the fingers stray'd They gave the notes of care. A dim sad legend old Long since in some pale shade Of some far twilight told, She knows not when or where,
She sings, with trembling hand on trembling lute-strings laid:
The murmur of the mourning ghost That keeps the shadowy kine "Oh, Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line!"
Ravelston, Ravelston,
The merry path that leads Down the golden morning hill, And thro' the silver meads;
Ravelston, Ravelston,
The stile beneath the tree,
The maid that kept her mother's kine, The song that sang she!
She sang her song, she kept her kine, She sat beneath the thorn When Andrew Keith of Ravelston Rode thro' the Monday morn;
His henchmen sing, his hawk-bells ring His belted jewels shine! Oh, Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line!
Year after year, where Andrew came, Comes evening down the glade, And still there sits a moonshine ghost Where sat the sunshine maid.
Her misty hair is faint and fair, She keeps the shadowy kine; Oh, Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line!
I lay my hand upon the stile, The stile is lone and cold,
The burnie that goes babbling by Says nought that can be told.
Yet, stranger! here, from year to year, She keeps her shadowy kine; Oh, Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line!
Step out three steps, where Andrew stood - Why blanch thy cheeks for fear? The ancient stile is not alone,
"Tis not the burn I hear!
She makes her immemorial moan, She keeps her shadowy kine;
Oh, Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line!
TOMMY'S DEAD
You may give over plough, boys, You may take the gear to the stead, All the sweat o' your brow, boys, Will never get beer and bread. The seed's waste, I know, boys, There's not a blade will grow, boys, 'Tis cropp'd out, I trow, boys, And Tommy's dead.
Send the colt to fair, boys, He's going blind, as I said, My old eyes can't bear, boys, To see him in the shed; The cow's dry and spare, boys, She's neither here nor there, boys, I doubt she's badly bred ;
Stop the mill to-morn, boys, There'll be no more corn, boys, Neither white nor red; There's no sign of grass, boys,
You may sell the goat and the ass, boys, The land's not what it was, boys, And the beasts must be fed :
You may turn Peg away, boys,
You may pay off old Ned,
We've had a dull day, boys,
And Tommy 's dead.
Move my chair on the floor, boys, Let me turn my head:
She's standing there in the door, boys, Your sister Winifred !
Take her away from me, boys,
Move me round in my place, boys, Let me turn my head,
Take her away from me, boys, As she lay on her death-bed, The bones of her thin face, boys, As she lay on her death-bed! I don't know how it be, boys, When all's done and said, But I see her looking at me, boys, Wherever I turn my head; Out of the big oak-tree, boys, Out of the garden-bed,
And the lily as pale as she, boys, And the rose that used to be red.
There's something not right, boys, But I think it's not in my head, I've kept my precious sight, boys - The Lord be hallowed! Outside and in
The ground is cold to my tread, The hills are wizen and thin, The sky is shrivell'd and shred, The hedges down by the loan I can count them bone by bone, The leaves are open and spread, But I see the teeth of the land, And hands like a dead man's hand, And the eyes of a dead man's head. There's nothing but cinders and sand, The rat and the mouse have fed, And the summer 's empty and cold; Over valley and wold
Wherever I turn my head There's a mildew and a mould, The sun's going out overhead, And I'm very old, And Tommy's dead.
What am I staying for, boys? You're all born and bred, 'Tis fifty years and more, boys, Since wife and I were wed, And she's gone before, boys, And Tommy 's dead.
She was always sweet, boys, Upon his curly head,
She knew she'd never see 't, boys, And she stole off to bed;
I've been sitting up alone, boys,
For he 'd come home, he said, But it's time I was gone, boys, For Tommy 's dead.
Put the shutters up, boys, Bring out the beer and bread, Make haste and sup, boys,
For my eyes are heavy as lead; There's something wrong i' the cup, boys, There's something ill wi' the bread, I don't care to sup, boys, And Tommy's dead.
I'm not right, I doubt, boys, I've such a sleepy head,
I shall never more be stout, boys, You may carry me to bed. What are you about, boys? The prayers are all said, The fire's rak'd out, boys, And Tommy's dead.
The stairs are too steep, boys, You may carry me to the head, The night's dark and deep, boys, Your mother's long in bed, "Tis time to go to sleep, boys, And Tommy 's dead.
I'm not us'd to kiss, boys,
You may shake my hand instead. All things go amiss, boys,
You may lay me where she is, boys, And I'll rest my old head: 'Tis a poor world, this, boys, And Tommy's dead.
NOR force nor fraud shall sunder us! O ye Who north or south, on east or western land, Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth, Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God For God; O ye who in eternal youth Speak with a living and creative flood This universal English, and do stand Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand
Heroic utterance-parted, yet a whole, Far yet unsever'd, -children brave and free Of the great Mother-tongue, and ye shall be Lords of an empire wide as Shakespeare's soul,
Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme, And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream.
EPIGRAM ON THE DEATH OF EDWARD FORBES
NATURE, a jealous mistress, laid him low. He woo'd and won her; and, by love made
She show'd him more than mortal man should know,
Then slew him lest her secret should be told.
Ah! thou, too, Sad Alighieri, like a waning moon Setting in storm behind a grove of bays! Balder. Yes, the great Florentine, who wove his web
And thrust it into hell, and drew it forth Immortal, having burn'd all that could burn, And leaving only what shall still be found Untouch'd, nor with the smell of fire upon it, Under the final ashes of this world.
Doctor. Shakespeare and Milton ! Balder. Switzerland and home.
I ne'er see Milton, but I see the Alps, As once, sole standing on a peak supreme, To the extremest verge summit and gulf
I saw, height after depth, Alp beyond Alp, O'er which the rising and the sinking soul Sails into distance, heaving as a ship O'er a great sea that sets to strands unseen. And as the mounting and descending bark, Borne on exulting by the under deep, Gains of the wild wave something not the
Catches a joy of going, and a will Resistless, and upon the last lee foam Leaps into air beyond it, so the soul Upon the Alpine ocean mountain-toss'd, Incessant carried up to heaven, and plunged To darkness, and still wet with drops cf death
Held into light eternal, and again
Cast down, to be again uplift in vast And infinite succession, cannot stay The mad momentum, but in frenzied sight Of horizontal clouds and mists and skies And the untried Inane, springs on the surge Of things, and passing matter by a force Material, thro' vacuity careers, Rising and falling.
Doctor. And my Shakespeare! Call Milton your Alps, and which is he among The tops of Andes? Keep your Paradise, And Eves, and Adams, but give me the Earth
That Shakespeare drew, and make it grave and gay
With Shakespeare's men and women; let me laugh
Or weep with them, and you
A wager by my faith- either his muse Was the recording angel, or that hand Cherubic, which fills up the Book of Life, Caught what the last relaxing gripe let fall
By a death-bed at Stratford, and henceforth
Holds Shakespeare's pen. Now strain your sinews, poet,
And top your Pelion, - Milton Switzerland, And English Shakespeare
This dear English land! This happy England, loud with brooks and birds,
Shining with harvests, cool with dewy trees, And bloom'd from hill to dell; but whose
Are daughters, and Ophelia still more fair Than any rose she weaves; whose noblest floods
Some legend low and long, Never so weak or strong As to let go
While it can hold this heart Withouten sigh or smart, Or as to hold this heart When it sighs "No."
Some long low swaying song, As the sway'd shadow long Sways to and fro
Where, thro' the crowing cocks, And by the swinging clocks, Some weary mother rocks Some weary woe.
Sing up and down to me Like a dream-boat at sea, So, and still so,
Float through the "then" and "when," Rising from when to then, Sinking from then to when While the waves go.
Low and high, high and low, Now and then, then and now, Now, now;
And when the now is then, and when the then is now,
And when the low is high, and when the high is low,
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