Toss the light ball-bestride the stick,

(I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) With fancies buoyant as the thistle down, Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk, With many a lamb-like frisk,

(He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown.)

Thou pretty opening rose !

(Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!) Balmy, and breathing music like the south, (He really brings my heart into my mouth!) Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star, (I wish that window had an iron bar!) Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove(I'll tell you what, my love,

I cannot write unless he's sent above!)

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER

I remember, I remember

The house where I was born-
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn:
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day;
But now I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.

I remember, I remember

The roses-red and white;
The violets and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday—
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember

Where I was used to swing;

And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing:

My spirit flew in feathers then,

That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool

The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember

The fir-trees dark and high;

I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:

It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy

To know I'm farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.

THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread-
Stitch! stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,

And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch,
She sang the "Song of the Shirt!"

"Work! work! work!

While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work-work-work!

Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's oh! to be a slave

Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save, If THIS is Christian work!

"Work-work-work!

Till the brain begins to swim;
Work-work-work!

Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in my dream!

"Oh! men with sisters dear!

Oh! men with mothers and wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives!
Stitch-stitch-stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A SHROUD as well as a shirt!

"Work-work-work!

From weary chime to chime; Work-work-work!

As prisoners work for crime! Band, and gusset, and seam, Seam, and gusset, and band,

Till the heart is sick and the brain benumb'd, As well as the weary hand!

"Work-work-work,

In the dull December light;

And work-work-work!

When the weather is warm and bright: While underneath the eaves

The brooding swallows cling,

As if to show me their sunny backs,
And twit me with the spring.

"Oh! but to breathe the breath

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet;
With the sky above my head,

And the grass beneath my feet:
For only one short hour

To feel as I used to feel,

Before I knew the woes of want,
And the walk that costs a meal!

"Oh! but for one short hour!
A respite, however brief!

No blessed leisure for love or hope,
But only time for grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart-
But in their briny bed

My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!"

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread;
Stitch-stitch-stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt;

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch-
Would that its tone could reach the rich!-
She sung this "Song of the Shirt!"

THE LADY'S DREAM.

The lady lay in her bed,

Her couch so warm and soft,

But her sleep was restless and broken still;

For, turning oft and oft

From side to side, she mutter'd and moan'd,

And toss'd her arms aloft.

At last she started up,

And gazed on the vacant air
With a look of awe, as if she saw

Some dreadful phantom there

And then in the pillow she buried her face
From visions ill to bear.

The very curtain shook,

Her terror was so extreme,

And the light that fell on the broider'd quilt

Kept a tremulous gleam;

And her voice was hollow, and shook as she cried, "Oh me! that awful dream!

"That weary, weary walk,

In the churchyard's dismal ground!

And those horrible things, with shady wings,
That came and flitted round-

Death, death, and nothing but death,
In every sight and sound!

"And oh! those maidens young,

Who wrought in that dreary room,

With figures drooping and spectres thin,
And cheeks without a bloom;-

And the voice that cried, For the pomp of pride
We haste to an early tomb!'

"For the pomp and pleasures of pride,
We toil like the African slaves,

And only to earn a home, at last,
Where yonder cypress waves;—
And then it pointed-I never saw
A ground so full of graves!

"And still the coffins came,

With their sorrowful trains and slow;
Coffin after coffin still,

A sad and sickening show;

From grief exempt, I never had dreamt
Of such a world of woe!

"Of the hearts that daily break,
Of the tears that hourly fall,
Of the many, many troubles of life,
That grieve this earthly ball-
Disease and Hunger, Pain and Want,
But now I dream of them all!

"For the blind and the cripple were there,
And the babe that pined for bread,
And the houseless man, and the widow poor
Who begg'd-to bury the dead!

The naked, alas, that I might have clad,

The famish'd I might have fed!

"The sorrow I might have soothed, And the unregarded tears!

For many a thronging shape was there,
From long forgotten years-
Ay, even the poor rejected Moor,
Who raised my childish fears!

"Each pleading look, that, long ago,
I scann'd with a heedless eye;
Each face was gazing as plainly there
As when I pass'd it by;

Woe, woe for me if the past should be
Thus present when I die!

"No need of sulphurous lake,
No need of fiery coal,

But only that crowd of humankind
Who wanted pity and dole-

In everlasting retrospect

Will wring my sinful soul!

"Alas! I have walk'd through life
Too heedless where I trod;

Nay, helping to trample my fellow-worm,
And fill the burial sod-
Forgetting that even the sparrow falls,
Not unmark'd of God!

"I drank the richest draughts,
And ate whatever is good-
Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit,
Supplied my hungry mood;

But I never remember'd the wretched ones
That starve for want of food!

"I dress'd as the nobles dress,
In cloth of silver and gold,

With silk and satin, and costly furs,
In many an ample fold:

But I never remember'd the naked limbs
That froze with winter's cold.

"The wounds I might have heal'd!
The human sorrow and smart!

And yet it never was in my soul
To play so ill a part:

But evil is wrought by want of thought
As well as want of heart!"

She clasp'd her fervent hands,

And the tears began to stream;
Large, and bitter, and fast they fell,
Remorse was so extreme;

And yet, oh yet, that many a dame
Would dream the Lady's Dream!