English

My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child:
But I am black as if bereav'd of light.

My mother taught me underneath a tree,
And sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And pointing to the east, began to say:

"Look on the rising sun: there God does live,
And gives his light, and gives his heat away;
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning, joy in the noon day.

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:

He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb,
He is meek, and he is mild;
He became a little child.

The Sun does arise
And make happy the skies;
The merry bells ring
To welcome the Spring
The skylark and thrush,
The birds of the bush,
Sing louder around
To the bells' cheerful sound,
While our sport shall be seen
On the Echoing Green.

Old John, with white hair,
Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak,
Among the old folk.
They laugh at our play,
And soon they shall say:

"Such, such were the joys
When we all, girls and boys,
In our youth time were seen

How sweet is the shepherd's sweet lot!
From the morn to the evening he strays;
He shall follow his sheep all the day
And his tongue shall be filled with praise.

For he hears the lamb's innocent call,
And he hears the ewe's tender reply;
He is watchful while they are in peace,
For they know when their shepherd is nigh.

Piping down the valleys wild
Piping songs of pleasant glee

On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me,

"Pipe a song about a Lamb";
So I piped with merry chear.
"Piper pipe that song again"--
So I piped, he wept to hear.

"Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe
Sing thy songs of happy chear";
So I sung the same again
While he wept with joy to hear.

"Piper sit thee down and write
In a book that all may read"--
So he vanish'd from my sight.
And I pluck'd a hollow reed,

I
Pensive at eve on the hard world I mus'd,
And my poor heart was sad: so at the Moon
I gaz'd--and sigh'd, and sigh'd!--for, ah! how soon
Eve darkens into night. Mine eye perus'd
With tearful vacancy the dampy grass
Which wept and glitter'd in the paly ray;
And I did pause me on my lonely way,
And mused me on those wretched ones who pass
O'er the black heath of Sorrow. But, alas!
Most of Myself I thought: when it befell
That the sooth Spirit of the breezy wood
Breath'd in mine ear--'All this is very well;

WEBSTER FORD

Do you remember, O Delphic Apollo,
The sunset hour by the river, when Mickey M'Grew
Cried, " There's a ghost, " and I, " It's Delphic Apollo; "
And the son of the banker derided us, saying, " It's light
By the flags at the water's edge, you half-witted fools. "
And from thence, as the wearisome years rolled on, long after
Poor Mickey fell down in the water tower to his death,
Down, down, through bellowing darkness, I carried
The vision which perished with him like a rocket which falls

ARCHIBALD HIGBIE

I loathed you, Spoon River. I tried to rise above you,
I was ashamed of you. I despised you
As the place of my nativity.
And there in Rome, among the artists,
Speaking Italian, speaking French,
I seemed to myself at times to be free
Of every trace of my origin.
I seemed to be reaching the heights of art
And to breathe the air that the masters breathed,
And to see the world with their eyes.
But still they'd pass my work and say:
" What are you driving at, my friend?

Of John Cabanis' wrath and of the strife
Of hostile parties, and his dire defeat
Who led the common people in the cause
Of freedom for Spoon River, and the fall
Of Rhodes' bank that brought unnumbered woes
And loss to many, with engendered hate
That flamed into the torch in Anarch hands
To burn the court-house, on whose blackened wreck
A fairer temple rose and Progress stood —
Sing, muse, that lit the Chian's face with smiles
Who saw the ant-like Greeks and Trojans crawl
About Scamander, over walls, pursued

10. In Port.
Happy the man who has got into harbour,
And left far behind him the sea, and the tempests,
And now is seated, warm and tranquil,
In the jolly town-cellar at Bremen.

See how pleasant and lovely the world
Mirrors itself in the magic beaker;
And how the ripping microcosmus
Warmly streams into the thirsty heart!

All things see I in the glass,
Stories of ancient and modern nations,
Turks and Greeks, and Hegel and Gans;