A Meadow Tragedy

Here's a meadow full of sunshine,
Ripe grasses lush and high;
There's a reaper on the roadway,
And a lark hangs in the sky.

There's a nest of love enclosing
Three little beaks that cry;
The reaper's in the meadow
And a lark hangs in the sky.

Here's a mead all full of summer,
And tragedy goes by
With a knife amongst the grasses,
And a song up in the sky.

Sleep on my Love in thy cold bed

Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed,
Never to be disquieted!
My last good-night! Thou wilt not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake;
Till age, or grief, or sickness must
Marry my body to that dust
It so much loves, and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.
Stay for me there! I will not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale.
And think not much of my delay;
I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed
Desire can make, or sorrows breed.
Each minute is a short degree,

I Doubt a Lovely Thing Is Dead

I doubt a lovely thing is dead,
An inward thing, so clear and sweet;
I come at night and lay my head
Against its breast, and hear no beat;
I touch its hands, and feel no heat.

Lo! I have slain a lovely thing,
For I am blind in soul and sight;
If it would live, it needs must sing,
It could not prosper in the night;
It waned, and waited for the light.

With loneliness and empty rooms,
With dust and ashes of the past,
I sat and heard the busy looms
Work out the warp of First and Last;

Monday's Child

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for its living,
And a child that's born on the Sabbath day
Is blithe and bonny and good and gay.

Light and Love

Light waits for us in heaven: Inspiring thought!
That when the darkness all is overpast,
The beauty which the Lamb of God has bought
Shall flow about our savéd souls at last,
And wrap them from all night-time and all woe:
The spirit and the word assure us so.

Love lives for us in heaven: Oh, not so sweet
Is the May dew which mountain flowers inclose
Nor golden raining of the winnowed wheat,
Nor blushing out of the brown earth, of rose,
Or whitest lily, as, beyond time's wars,
The silvery rising of these two twin stars!

Nitra, Lovely Nitra

Nitra, lovely Nitra,
Noble, lofty Nitra,
There was a time you bloom'd;
Oh, why have you been doom'd?

Look! I love no other,
Thou, my Slovak mother;
Behold—and pity me;
What tears I shed for thee!

You were the holy place
Which saw Saint Method's face;
He brought here God's own word,
That all our people heard.

Now greed and worldly lust
Have laid you in the dust;
That is the law of change;
To it the world must range.

First did I fear, when first my love began

First did I fear, when first my love began,
Possessed in fits by watchful jealousy;
I sought to keep what I by favor wan,
And brooked no partner in my love to be.
But tyrant sickness fed upon my love,
And spread his ensigns, dyed with color white;
Then was suspicion glad for to remove,
And, loving much, did fear to lose her quite.
Erect, fair sweet, the colors thou didst wear;
Dislodge thy griefs, the short'ners of content;
For now of life, not love, is all my fear,
Lest life and love be both together spent.

Some Time After

Where are the poems gone, of our first days?
Locked on the page
Where we for ever learn our first embrace.
Love come of age
Takes words as said, but never takes for granted
His holy luck, his pledge
That what is truly loved is truly known.
Now in that knowledge
Love unillusioned is not love disenchanted.

O Lord, when Thou didst call me, didst Thou know

O Lord, when Thou didst call me, didst Thou know
My heart disheartened thro' and thro',
Still hankering after Egypt full in view
Where cucumbers and melons grow?
—“Yea, I knew.”—

But, Lord, when Thou didst choose me, didst Thou know
How marred I was and withered too,
Nor rose for sweetness nor for virtue rue,
Timid and rash, hasty and slow?
—“Yea, I knew.”—

My Lord, when Thou didst love me, didst Thou know
How weak my efforts were, how few,
Tepid to love and impotent to do,

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