English

About my fields, in the broad sun
And blaze of noon, there goeth one,1
Barefoot and robed in blue, to scan
With the hard eye of the husbandman
My harvests and my cattle. Her,
When even puts the birds astir
And day has set in the great woods,
We seek, among her garden roods,
With bells and cries in vain: the while
Lamps, plate, and the decanter smile
On the forgotten board. But she,
Deaf, blind, and prone on face and knee,
Forgets time, family and feast
And digs like a demented beast.1 Mrs. Stevenson.

Man, child or woman, none from her,
The insatiable embellisher,
Escapes! She leaves, where'er she goes,
A wreath, a ribbon, or a rose:
A bow or else a button changed,
Two hairs coquettishly deranged,
Some vital trifle, takes the eye
And shows the adorner has been by.
Is fortune more obdurate grown?
And does she leave my dear alone
With none to adorn, none to caress?
Straight on her proper loveliness
She broods and lingers, cuts and carves
With combs and brushes, rings and scarves.

High as my heart! — the quip be mine
That draws their stature to a line,
My pair of fairies plump and dark,
The dryads of my cattle park.
Here by my window close I sit,
And watch (and my heart laughs at it)
How these my dragon-lilies are
Alike and yet dissimilar.
From European womankind
They are divided and defined
By the free limb and the plain mind,
The nobler gait, the naked foot,
The indiscreeter petticoat;
And show, by each endearing cause,
More like what Eve in Eden was —

As with heaped bees at hiving time
The boughs are clotted, as (ere prime)
Heaven swarms with stars, or the city street
Pullulates with faring feet;
So swarmed my senses once; that now
Repose behind my tranquil brow,
Unsealed, asleep, quiescent, clear;
Now only the vast shapes I hear
Hear--and my hearing slowly fills--
Rivers and winds among the twisting hills,
And hearken--and my face is lit--
Life facing; death pursuing it.

PRINT DAMAGED - P. 507
Heaven swarms with stars, or the city street
Pullulates with passing feet;
So swarmed my senses once, that now
Repose behind my tranquil brow,
Unsealed, asleep, quiescent, clear;
Now only the vast shapes I hear —
Hear — and my hearing slowly fills —
Rivers and winds among the twisting hills,
And hearken — and my face is lit —
Life facing, Death pursuing it.

We travelled in the print of olden wars,
Yet all the land was green,
And love we found, and peace,
Where fire and war had been.

They pass and smile, the children of the sword —
No more the sword they wield;
And O, how deep the corn
Along the battle-field!1 From Travels with a Donkey .

He was , and is not! Graecia's trembling shore,
Sighing through all her palmy groves, shall tell
That Harold's pilgrimage at last is o'er;
Mute the impassioned tongue, and tuneful shell,
That erst was wont in noblest strains to swell!
Hushed the proud shouts that rode th' Aegaean wave,
For lo! the great deliv'rer breathes farewell!
Gives to the world his mem'ry, and a grave —
And dies amidst the land he lived and fought to save!

The coffin, as I crossed the common lane,
Came sudden on my view; it was not here
A sight of every day, as in the streets
Of the great city — and we paused and asked
Who to the grave was going. It was one,
A village girl; they told us she had borne
An eighteen months' strange illness, pined away
With such slow wasting as had made the hour
Of death most welcome. To the house of mirth
We held our way and, with that idle talk
That passes o'er the mind and is forgot,
We wore away the hour. But it was eve

In antient Times, as Story tells,
The Saints would often leave their Cells,
And strole about, but hide their Quality,
To try good People's Hospitality.
It happen'd on a Winter Night,
As Authors of the Legend write;
Two Brother Hermits, Saints by Trade,
Taking their Tour in Masquerade;
Disguis'd in tatter'd Habits, went
To a small Village down in Kent ;
Where, in the Strolers Canting Strain,
They beg'd from Door to Door in vain;
Try'd ev'ry tone might Pity win,

Old Lewis thus the terms of peace to burnish,
Has lately let out Dunkirk ready furnished;
But whether 'tis by lease, or copyhold,
Or tenure in capite, we've not been told:
But this we hope, if yet he pulls his horns in,
He'll be obliged to give his tenants warning.