HEATHER ALE: A GALLOWAY LEGEND FROM the bonny bells of heather There rose a king in Scotland, He hunted them like roes. He hunted as they fled, And strewed the dwarfish bodies Summer came in the country, Lay numbered with the dead. The king in the red moorland The king rode, and was angry; It fortuned that his vassals, Riding free on the heath, Came on a stone that was fallen And vermin hid beneath. Rudely plucked from their hiding, Never a word they spoke : A son and his aged father Last of the dwarfish folk. The king sat high on his charger, Down by the shore he had them; Should wreck such ills where they obtain From reckless play, what noble gain? One friend hard hit, the rest afraid To show their pleasure at his pain, Such sympathy might well persuade The cards in garish heaps displayed To join, with impish revelling, And jeer as all his fortunes fade Puppets of knave, and queen, and king. L'ENVOI Prince! after all, they are the shade, SUFFICIENCY A LITTLE love, of Heaven a little share, And then we go - what matters it? since where, Or when, or how, none may aforetime know, "And the winds from dawn to vesper, Blow they north or blow they south, Softly in my ear shall whisper, "Thou hast kissed Schöne Rothraut's mouth.' "Every floweret of the meadow, Every bird upon the tree, Shall bring back my joy to me." A PARABLE OF THE SPIRIT I CAME in light that I might behold With salt rain of tears; and everywhere With myrtle and orange bloom and store For its time of travail had passed away. The cast swathing robe. "It is well that so On its alabaster altar stood A vessel with sacrificial blood. Dimmed was that shrine by no cloud of gloom, But bright shone that pillar which rose above On her earthly jewels with its lambent love. So I knew that any gift of mine Was naught by her treasure of love divine, Flowing freely down; but a flower I lent That would bloom in her bosom with sweet content, 'T was forget-me-not. "Though poor," I said, "Mid her blossoms of living love, the dead Would yet be loved, and I will that she Keep this, and render it back to me." I knew how my blossom would live and Its fulness, before but dimly seen, Choked with the sordid piles o'erthrown thrust Unsightly growths in that evil space, For no gift of mine of love or care sun. Then I departed, earth's lesson o'er. And former longings, and so I said, Eric Mackay THE WAKING OF THE LARK O BONNIE bird, that in the brake, exultant, dost prepare thee, As poets do whose thoughts are true, for wings that will upbear thee Oh! tell me, tell me, bonnie bird, Canst thou not pipe of hope deferred ? Or canst thou sing of naught but Spring among the golden meadows? Methinks a bard (and thou art one) should suit his song to sorrow, And tell of pain, as well as gain, that waits us on the morrow; But thou art not a prophet, thou, If naught but joy can touch thee now; If, in thy heart, thou hast no vow that speaks of Nature's anguish. Oh! I have held my sorrows dear, and felt, though poor and slighted, The songs we love are those we hear when love is unrequited; But thou art still the slave of dawn, And canst not sing till night be gone, Till o'er the pathway of the fawn the sunbeams shine and quiver. Thou art the minion of the sun that rises in his splendor, And canst not spare for Dian fair the songs that should attend her. The moon, so sad and silver-pale, Is mistress of the nightingale ; And thou wilt sing on hill and dale no ditties in the darkness. For Queen and King thou wilt not spare one note of thine outpouring; And thou 'rt as free as breezes be on Nature's velvet flooring. The daisy, with its hood undone, The grass, the sunlight, and the sunThese are the joys, thou holy one, that pay thee for thy singing. Oh, hush! Oh, hush! how wild a gush of rapture in the distance A roll of rhymes, a toll of chimes, a cry for love's assistance; A sound that wells from happy throats, A flood of song where beauty floats, And where our thoughts, like golden boats, do seem to cross a river. |