English

In the quiet and solemn night,
When the moon is silvery bright,
Then the screech owl's eerie cry
Mocks the beauties of the sky:
Tu whit, tu whoo,
Its wild halloo
Doth read a drowsy homily.

From yon old castle's chimneys tall,
The bat on leathern sail doth fall
In wanton-wise to skim the earth,
And flout the mouse that gave it birth.
Tu whit, tu whoo,
That wild haloo
hath marred the little monster's mirth.

Fond lovers seek the dewy vale,
That swimmeth in the moonshine pale;

The calmness of this moontide hour,
The shadow of this wood,
The fragrance of each wilding flower,
Are marvellously good;
Oh, here crazed spirits breathe the balm
Of nature's solitude!

It is a most delicious calm
That resteth everywhere—
The holiness of soul-sung psalm,
Of felt but voiceless prayer!
With hearts too full to speak their bliss,
God's creatures silent are.

They silent are; but not the less,
In this most tranquil hour,
Of deep unbroken dreaminess,
They own that Love and Power

What longer need hath she of loveliness
Whom Death has parted from her lord's caress?
Of glimmering robes like rainbow-tangled mist,
Of gleaming glass or jewels on her wrist,
Blossoms or fillet-pearls to deck her head,
Or jasmine garlands to adorn her bed?

Put by the mirror or her bridal days …
Why needs she now its counsel or its praise,
Or happy symbol of the henna leaf
For hands that know the comradeship of grief,
Red spices for her lips that drink of sighs,
Or black collyrium for her weeping eyes?

Friend, I return your English Hexameters, thanking you for them.
More than forty years since, I constructed such verses,
Choosing a lofty theme, too often worded un-simply.
Even now, I remember one stol'n line of the anthem:
“Thou for ever and ever, God, Omnipotent, reignest!”
Though my verbiage pleas'd me, long ago did it journey
Whither dead things tend. For Homer's world-famous metre
Cannot in english be pleasing. Saxon may write it in Saxon,
Oft' for dactyl and spondee using iambic and trochee,

He breathed into his art the living soul
Of a true sympathy, that quick impelled
The utterance of ennobled thoughts that swelled
In mystic harmonies. The thunder-roll
Of proud defiance scorned the control
Of any fate that fought in vain. Love swelled
From out his heart in melodies that held
The ear in strained desire to sip the whole
Of life and love. Reason is here subdued
By that fine inner instinct that explains
The wondrous meanings that the worlds include
Of here and the hereafter, and regains

Athoughtful lad was miss'd one day,
And his mother had felt he was long away;
So she dropp'd her work, and closed the door,
And walk'd a little way down the moor;
And found him musing under a tree,
And cried, “Come home, my son, with me.”
And the lad replied, “I will, I will;
I was learning the lore of the gentle rill.
O wist ye not that your boy hath striven
To tune the harp which the Lord hath given?”

And the words which rose on the summer air
Were treasured up by that mother there;
And those gentle tones she ever heard,

Where is that face, whose slightest air could move
My trembling heart, and strike the springs of love?
That Heaven, where two fair stars, with genial ray,
Shed their kind influence on my life's dim way?
Where are that science, sense, and worth confest;
That speech by virtue, by the graces drest?
Where are those beauties, where those charms combin'd,
That caus'd this long captivity of mind?
Where the dear shade of all that once was fair,
The source, the solace of each amorous care;
My heart's sole sovereign, Nature's only boast?

Loved , wedded, and caressed,
Although her children died
She still seemed doubly blest,
Her helpmate at her side
More dear than all the rest!

But sorrow did not kill
The thought of those so dear,
Who all her feelings fill,
As though still with her here
To play about her still.

Her little children's fate
She never could recall,
Yet lived she desolate,
For she had lost them all,—
And then she lost her mate.

When came that hour of woe
And all she loved was gone,
Not sorrow's keenest blow

O Nora, amber-coolun,
It robs me of my rest
That my head should be forbidden
To lie upon your breast!
It robs me of my rest, Love,
And it breaks my heart and brain;
And oh! that I could bear my dear
Across the raging main!

Oh, valentine and sweetheart!
Be true to what you swore
When you promised me you'd marry me
Without a farthing's store;
Oh, we'd walk the dew together,
And light our steps should be;
And Nora, amber-coolun,
I'd kiss you daintily.

Hard by the holm

What ails thee, O thou Sea,
That thus with mad endeavour
Thou heavest thy waves on the lonely shore,
And beatest thy banks for ever?

Ah! so my weary heart
Throbs with a restless yearning,
For the golden light of the faded days,
And the joys that have no returning.

What means, O tossing Sea,
That wild and awful wailing,
Like the prayer for pity from some lost soul
Which is ever unavailing?

Oh, even so my heart
Doth wail, and pine, and languish,
For a love that can satisfy the soul,