May-Day Part 11

He took the colour of his vest From rabbit's coat or grouse's breast; For, as the wood-kinds lurk and hide, So walks the woodman, unespied.

NORTHMAN.

The gale that wrecked you on the sand, It helped my rowers to row; The storm is my best galley hand, And drives me where I go.

FROM ALCUIN.

The sea is the road of the bold, Frontier of the wheat-sown plains, The pit wherein the streams are rolled, And fountain of the rains.

EXCELSIOR.

Over his head were the maple buds, And over the tree was the moon, And over the moon were the starry studs, That drop from the angel's shoon.

BORROWING.

FROM THE FRENCH.

Some of your hurts you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured From evils which never arrived!

NATURE.

Boon Nature yields each day a brag which we now first behold, And trains us on to slight the new, as if it were the old: But blest is he, who, playing deep, yet haply asks not why, Too busied with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.

FATE.

Her planted eye to-day controls, Is in the morrow most at home, And sternly calls to being souls That curse her when they come.

HOROSCOPE.

Ere he was born, the stars of fate Plotted to make him rich and great: When from the womb the babe was loosed, The gate of gifts behind him closed.

POWER.

Cast the bantling on the rocks, Suckle him with the she-wolf's teat, Wintered with the hawk and fox, Power and speed be hands and feet.

CLIMACTERIC.

I am not wiser for my age, Nor skilful by my grief; Life loiters at the book's first page,-- Ah! could we turn the leaf.

HERI, CRAS, HODIE.

s.h.i.+nes the last age, the next with hope is seen, To-day slinks poorly off unmarked between: Future or Past no richer secret folds, O friendless Present! than thy bosom holds.

MEMORY.

Night-dreams trace on Memory's wall Shadows of the thoughts of day, And thy fortunes, as they fall, The bias of the will betray.

LOVE.

Love on his errand bound to go Can swim the flood, and wade through snow, Where way is none, 'twill creep and wind And eat through Alps its home to find.

SACRIFICE.

Though love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply,-- ''Tis man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.'

PERICLES.