Your pride is yet no mate for mine, Too proud to care from whence I came. Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Some meeker pupil you must find, I could not stoop to such a mind. Is not more cold to you than I, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, You put strange memories in my head. Not thrice your branching limes have blown Since I beheld young Laurence dead. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, When thus he met his mother's view, She had the passions of her kind, She spake some certain truths of you. That scarce is fit for you to hear; Lady Clara Vere de Vere, There stands a spectre in your hall: The guilt of blood is at your door : You changed a wholesome heart to gall. You held your course without remorse, To make him trust his modest worth, And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare, And slew him with your noble birth. Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent The grand old gardener and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. I know you, Clara Vere de Vere: You needs must play such pranks as thes Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, If Time be heavy on your hands, THE MAY QUEEN. You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. There's many a black black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine; But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say, So I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake, If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break: But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see, But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree? But I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May They say he's dying all for love, but that can never be : There's many a bolder lad 'ill woo me any summer day, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green, And you'll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen; For the shepherd lads on every side 'ill come from far away, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. The honeysuckle round the porch has wov'n its wavy bowers, The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. All the valley, mother, 'ill be fresh and green and still, And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill, And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'ill merrily glance and play, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. NEW-YEAR'S EVE. IF you 're waking, call me early, call me early, mother dear, It is the last New-year that I shall ever see, Then you may lay me low i' the mould and think no more of me. To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a merry day; There's not a flower on all the hills; the frost is on the pane : I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high: I long to see a flower so before the day I die. The building rook 'ill caw from the windy tall elm-tree, And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea, And the swallow 'ill come back again with summer o'er the wave, Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine, In the early early morning the summer sun 'ill shine, When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool. You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade, 1 shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass, With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass. I have been wild and wayward, but you'll forgive me now; If I can I 'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place; Good-night, good-night, when I have said good-night forevermore She 'll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor; Good-night, sweet mother; call me before the day is born, CONCLUSION. I THOUGHT to pass away before, and yet alive I am; O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies, It seem'd so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun, O blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair! A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed. He taught me all the mercy, for he show'd me all the sin. I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat, All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call; For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear; With all my strength I pray'd for both, and so I felt resign'd, I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed, And then did something speak to me I know not what was said; And up the valley came again the music on the wind. But you were sleeping; and I said, "It's not for them; it's mine." So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret; O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow; O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done For ever and for ever with those just souls and true And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado? For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come- THERE is sweet music here that softer falls Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, In silence; ripen, fall and cease: 5. How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, With half-shut eyes ever to seem Falling asleep in a half-dream! Music that brings sweet sleep down from the To dream and dream, like yonder amber blissful skies. Here are cool mosses deep, And thro' the moss the ivies creep, And in the stream the long-leaved flowers Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness, And utterly consumed with sharp_distress, While all things else have rest from weariness? All things have rest: why should we toil alone, We only toil, who are the first of things, Still from one sorrow to another thrown: And cease from wanderings, Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm: Nor hearken what the inner spirit sings, "There is no joy but calm!" Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? 3. Lo! in the middle of the wood, The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, 4. Hateful is the dark-blue sky, Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea. Death is the end of life; ah, why Should life all labor be? Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange : And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. Or else the island princes over-bold Before them of the ten-years' war in Troy, Sore task to hearts worn out with many wars |