Bringing from your green retreats
Sense of quiet to these streets!
Sense of quiet-rest and stillness,
Till all but your sweets forgot,
Care's as if we knew it not;
And we wake, as if from illness,
To a healthful sense of what
God has given but man forgot.
TELL ME, MY HEART.
How will she look if we tell her we love her,
Tell her, my heart,
All the sweet secrets we only tell over,
How will she hear them? Ah! will the flush start
To her neck and white forehead, and murmur they move her,
Ah, no-far rather, as ever I'm fearing,
With calm, cold eyes,
Will she not, unmoved, just deign us a hearing,
Scarce with surprise,
No cheek deeper dyed-in her bosom, no rise,
No tremble of passion to be so endearing,
To us, her replies!
Do we deceive us, heart! is it but seeming!
Whisper fond heart;
Surely our eyes see, or are they but dreaming!
Does she not start,
Hearing my voice, and then still to a part,
As if, to act the cold maiden, she's scheming?
Masks she not, heart?
Ah, did we know what her dear heart is feeling!
Could we but share,
On its sweet hidden hopes stealthily stealing,
Then, if our dreams were true-then should we dare
Ask her to breathe all that now she's concealing,
All nestling there !
MORNING, MORNING, GIVE TO ME.
MORNING-morning, give to me,
In her smiling eyes, to see
Mirrored fair, all day's delights!
For her image, brought by dreams
To my sight, too unreal seems;
Shadow cannot substance be,
And those stars, like midnight's lights
Cold their radiance beams.
Let me all her beauty see
That the sun can show to me;
Fairer, can she not be made
By false fancy's hand of air
That to paint her must despair,
Since she can no sweeter be,
And it can but give in shade
All the sunshine shows more fair.
WHAT shall my cry be, O world, in thy fight?
What but that old shout of saint and of knight,
That cry of martyrs, rung out in God's sight,
"God and the right!"
Yes, O my soul, press on, casting out fear!
Gird on thy armour, and spur on, God's knight,
Through the world's battle-field, ring thy cry clear,
"God and the right !"
Many thy foes, and fierce, that thou must rout;
Dread are the hosts thy arm, fearless, must smite;
Dauntlessly cleave them down; strength's in that shout,
"God and the right !"
On-be thy shield over innocence flung !
Strike for the weak! for the desolate smite;
Wronged are the poor? be thine arm for them strung!
"God and the right !"
On-against tyranny, level thy lance !
On-turn all wrong and oppression to flight!
Shouting that battle-shout, dread no mischance!
"God and the right!"
In heart and purpose pure, if they be few
Who by thy side, for thy Master, will fight,
Cast thou fear out as thou criest anew,
"God and the right !"
Doubt not despair not! all fearing is sin;
They can but win who in God's service smite ;
Singly be heard thy cry o'er the world's din,
“God and the right !”
Wounded thou wilt be,-faint,-oft hard bestead,
Overpowered-beaten down-pressed with affright,
Yet, in the strength of that shout, on all tread!
"God and the right !"
Thou can'st but conquer at last; all, endure;
Thou shalt be victor in His name whose might
Is in thy shout that thy triumph makes sure,
"God and the right!"
NIGHT AND DAY ARE FROM HER NEVER.
NIGHT and day are from her never;
Down the raven of her hair
Starless darkness flows for ever;
Midnight's glooms are ever there;
But the twilight, Hesper-lighted,
Ere the moon is seen to rise,
Dark and shadowy light united,
That you peer through in her eyes;
So she gives to my glad sight
All the glories of the night.
See, the rosy hues of morning
On her cheek for ever linger,
Tinge her neck, its snows adorning,
Warm her bosom, tint her finger;
So from shade and sun she borrows
Sweetest glooms and lustrous gleams,
That will gladden all my morrows
With dear thoughts and priceless dreams;
In her, ever with me stay
Lustres both of night and day.
I'M haunted-I'm haunted-I'm really enchanted;
O witches, I thought that your days were no more;
But the way that you're going on with me is showing,
Poor devils, we're treated now just as of yore.
Kitty, Kitty, have you no pity?
Why can't you, wicked one, leave me alone?
Day and night nevermore, now have I evermore,
Through you, a moment I'm calling my own.
I'm haunted-I'm haunted-I'm wholly enchanted;
I can't do a thing, but you're plaguing me still.
If I try to be reading, how can I be heeding
The book, when your eyes are there, do what I will?
Kitty, Kitty, here in the city,
Busy in crowds-in the country, alone
Eating or drinking now-working or thinking now, Through you, I can't call a minute my own.
O how I'm haunted, witched and enchanted!
Never a fellow so pestered could be!
And, to my wonder, so fast I am under
Your spells, if I could-no, I wouldn't be free.
Kitty, Kitty, don't you have pity
On me! O dearest, don't leave me alone!
Day and night, nevermore, let me for evermore
Have, dear, a moment that isn't your own!
FOR MUSIC.
HAPPY birds flying,
Soon with him to be,
Him whom I'm sighing,
Pining so to see,
When his happy home you've found,
That dear dwelling hover round.
Say, how dreary,
Lone and weary,
Life is here to me.
Where is the gladness
Once I used to feel?
Now all is sadness,
Grief I must conceal.
Autumn's golden calm is here,
Days once sweet and nights once dear,
Yet how dreary,
Sad and weary,
Now they from me steal.
Sweet ones, O find him!
Round his window fly!
Winged ones, remind him,
Far, O far am I.
Say, how loved, O how more dear
He is now than even when here !
Say how dreary,
Lone and weary,
Here my days go by.
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