English

Sometimes when I am weary, I have dipped
Into this great green gospel opened wide,
And read the tale which no one has denied—
That God is good. With honey life has dripped
When I the ancient knowledge drank and sipped,
Finding new meanings on the page's side,
Fresh wonder where the sweet inscriptions glide
Through the illuminated manuscript.

Enchanting story! How the record runs
Through the vast world upon each scented page,
With marginal designs and glossaries,
Footnotes and flowery borders, and the sun's

My heart is away with the lad of Bebside,
And never can I to another be tied;
Not to be titled a lord's wedded bride,
Could Jinny abandon the lad of Bebside.

He dances so clever, he whistles so fine,
He's flattered and wooed from the Blyth to the Tyne,
Yet spite of the proffers he meets far and wide,
I'm alone the beloved of the lad of Bebside.

He entered our door on the eve of the Fair,
And cracked with our folk in a manner so rare,
Next morning right early with spleen I was eyed

Receive him to thy arms, melodious shade!
Thou know'st his worth, for round one fountain ye
Together play'd, green wreaths of poesy
Twining for your young brows that shall not fade.
Few were your summers, when yon reverend pile,
Rear'd by good Edward, youthful king, whose dress
Marks still the Christ-boy 'mong the crowds that press
Round holy Paul's, you entered with a smile!
Methinks I see you 'neath those cloisters grey
Conning apart some Bard of elder days,
Spenser perchance, or Chaucer's pilgrim lay;

‘I SHALL not think of it again,’
He said, but took with him the pain
Starting for a distant goal:
Years after, in another land,
He took my hand,
And said, ‘I think of that deed still,
Though on this further side the hill.’
I made this image of his soul.

Along a wave-lashed darkling strand
I saw a naked creature run,
And like himself another one,
Alike in shape, alike in size,
But darker and with fierier eyes,
Ran with him just one step behind,
With equal speed against the wind,

O THE sweet valley of deep grass,
Where through the summer stream doth pass,
In chain of shadow and still pool,
From misty morn to evening cool;
Where the black ivy creeps and twines
O'er the dark-armed, red-trunkèd pines,
Whence clattering the pigeon flits,
Or, brooding o'er her thin eggs, sits,
And every hollow of the hills
With echoing song the mavis fills.

Now the tide is safe and high,
In the fresh'ning morning breeze,
Over the harbour bar we hie
Out into the open seas.

With these fisher lads so strong
And knowing in the water ways,
I'll try to make a summer song,
The fisher's summer life to praise.

It seems to me the rounded sea
Begins to swell above the shore,
And the great gull, that fisher free,
Dives right down a yard or more.

With main and jib we bound along,
Through showers of spray we rise and dip,
But as for making any song,

There's the hill-road to Ardmore, Mary,
Here's the glen-road to Ardstrae:
Your home is younder, Mary,
And mine lies this way.

Will you come by the glen, Mary,
Or go the hill-road to Ardmore?
It is now and as you will, Mary,
For I will ask no more.

'Tis but a score years, Mary;
Since I bade you to Ardstrae;
And now you are not there, Mary
Nor walk the hill-side way.

Is it only a score years, Mary,
Since we parted by the shore,
And I watched you go, Mary,
By the hill-road to Ardmore?

She stood upon a towering rock
With wide and frantic gaze;
No glimmer through the darkness broke,
To scare her, with its rays:
All, all was dismal solitude,
Above, below, around,
Except the sea's commotion rude,
That echoed doleful sound.

No friend was near that lonely spot,—
No barque passed o'er the wave,—
No bird attuned its mellow note,—
No sigh the zephyrs gave:
The wildest storm that raged there,
Was in a fevered brain;
The pulse that swelled a bosom fair—
The only beating strain.

There is an isle beyond our ken,
Haunted by Dreams of weary men.
Grey Hopes enshadow it with wings
Weary with burdens of old things:
There the insatiate water-springs
Rise with the tears of all who weep:
And deep within it, deep, oh deep
The furtive voice of Sorrow sings.
There evermore,
Till Time be o'er,
Sad, oh so sad, the Dreams of men
Drift through the isle beyond our ken.

In alternate measure chanting, daily sing we Mary's praise;
And in strains of glad rejoicing, to the Lord our voices raise.
With a two-fold choir repeating Mary's never-dying fame,
Let each ear the praises gather, which our grateful tongues proclaim.
Judah's ever-glorious Daughter—chosen Mother of the Lord—
Who, to weak and fallen manhood, all its ancient worth restored.
From the Everlasting Father, Gabriel brought the, glad decree,
That, the Word Divine conceiving, she should set poor sinners free.