Lest he miss other children, lo!
His angel is his playfellow.
A riotous angel two years old,
With wings of rose and curls of gold.

There on the nursery floor together
They play when it is rainy weather,
Building brick castles with much pain,
Only to knock them down again.

Two golden heads together look
An hour long o'er a picture-book,
Or, tired of being good and still,
They play at horses with good will.

And when the boy laughs you shall hear
Another laughter silver-clear,

Good-bye to the cradle, the dear wooden cradle
The rude hand of Progress has thrust it aside.
No more to its motion o’er sleep’s fairy ocean,
Our play-weary wayfarers peacefully glide.

No more by the rhythm of slow-moving rocker,
Their sweet dreamy fancies are fostered and fed;
No more to low singing the cradle goes swinging –
The child of this era is put into bed.

Good-bye to the cradle, the dear wooden cradle,
It lent to the twilight a strange, subtle charm;
When bees left the clover, when play-time was over,

He sat beneath the curling vines
That round the gay verandah twined,
His forehead seamed with sorrow’s lines,
An old man with a weary mind.

His young wife, with a rosy face
And brown arms ambered by the sun,
Went flitting all about the place—
Master and mistress both in one.

What caused that old man’s look of care?
Was she not blithe and fair to see?
What blacker than her raven hair,
What darker than her eyes might be?

The old man bent his weary head;
The sunlight on his gray hair shone;

England, what have you done to make the speech
My fathers used a stranger to my lips,
An offence to the ear, a shackle on the tongue
That would fit new thoughts to an abiding tune?
Answer me now. The workshop where they wrought
Stands idle, and thick dust covers their tools.
The blue metal of streams, the copper and gold
Seams in the wood are all unquarried; the leaves'
Intricate filigree falls, and who shall renew
Its brisk pattern? When spring wakens the hearts
Of the young children to sing, what song shall be theirs?

Come back to me, little dancing feet that roam the wide world o'er,
I long for the lilt of your flying steps in my silent rooms once more;
Come back to me, little voices gay with laughter and with song,
Come back, little hearts beating high with hopes, I have missed and mourned you long.

My roses bloom in my garden walks all sweet and wet with the dew,
My lights shine down on the long hill road the waning twilights through,
The swallows flutter about my eaves as in the years of old,
And close about me their steadfast arms the lisping pine trees fold.

THIS winter's weather it waxeth cold,
   And frost it freezeth on every hill,
And Boreas blows his blast so bold
   That all our cattle are like to spill.
Bell, my wife, she loves no strife;
   She said unto me quietlye,
Rise up, and save cow Crumbock's life!
   Man, put thine old cloak about thee!

He. O Bell my wife, why dost thou flyte?
   Thou kens my cloak is very thin:
It is so bare and over worn,
   A cricke thereon cannot renn.

In an old bark hut on a mountainside
In a spot that was lone and drear
A woman whose heart was aching sat
Watching from year to year.
A small boy, Jim, her only child,
Helped her to watch and wait,
But the time never came when they could go free,
Free from the bond of hate.
For McConnel was out on the mountainside
Living without a hope
And seeing nothing before him now
But death by a hangman’s rope.
Hated and chased by his fellow men,
To take him alive or dead,
An outlaw banned by the world was he

I LOVE it, I love it ; and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old Arm-chair ?
I've treasured it long as a sainted prize ;
I've bedewed it with tears, and embalmed it with sighs.
' Tis bound by a thousand bands to my heart ;
Not a tie will break, not a link will start.
Would ye learn the spell ? -- a mother sat there ;
And a sacred thing is that old Arm-chair.

In Childhood's hour I lingered near
The hallowed seat with listening ear ;
And gentle words that mother would give ;
To fit me to die, and teach me to live.

About suffering, about adoration, the old masters
Disagree. When someone suffers, no one else eats
Or walks or opens the window--no one breathes
As the sufferers watch the sufferer.
In St. Sebastian Mourned by St. Irene
The flame of one torch is the only light.
All the eyes except the maidservant's (she weeps
And covers them with a cloth) are fixed on the shaft
Set in his chest like a column; St. Irene's
Hands are spread in the gesture of the Madonna,
Revealing, accepting, what she does not understand.
Her hands say: "Lo! Behold!"

And Ulysses answered, "King Alcinous, it is a good thing to hear a
bard with such a divine voice as this man has. There is nothing better
or more delightful than when a whole people make merry together,
with the guests sitting orderly to listen, while the table is loaded
with bread and meats, and the cup-bearer draws wine and fills his
cup for every man. This is indeed as fair a sight as a man can see.
Now, however, since you are inclined to ask the story of my sorrows,
and rekindle my own sad memories in respect of them, I do not know how