COOK.-CRANCH.-LOWELL.

563

ELIZA COOK. 1817

I love it, I love it, and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old arm-chair?

The Old Arm-Chair.

How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start,
When memory plays an old tune on the heart!

Old Dobbin.

CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCHI. 1813

Thought is deeper than all speech,

Feeling deeper than all thought;

Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.

Stanzas.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

"T is heaven alone that is given away, 'T is only God may be had for the asking.

The Vision of Sir Launfal.

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.

This child is not mine as the first was,
I cannot sing it to rest,

I cannot lift it up fatherly
And bless it upon my breast;

Ibid.

Yet it lies in my little one's cradle,
And sits in my little one's chair,

And the light of the heaven she 's gone to

Transfigures its golden hair.

The Changeling.

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold.

Be noble and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.

To the Dandelion.

Great Truths are portions of the soul of man ;
Great souls are portions of Eternity.

To win the secret of a weed's plain heart.

Two meanings have our lightest fantasies,
One of the flesh, and of the spirit one.

Sonnet iv.

Sonnet vi.

Sonnet xxv.

Sonnet xxxiv. Ed. 1844.
Irené.

Earth's noblest thing, a Woman perfected.

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to

decide,

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or

evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,

Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right;

And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

The Present Crisis.

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the

throne.

Ibid.

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her

wretched crust,

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just;

Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,

Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.

The Present Crisis.

Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us men. The Capture.

Ez fer war, I call it murder,

There you hev it plain an' flat;

I don't want to go no furder

Than my Testyment fer that. The Biglow Papers. No.i.

An' you've gut to git up airly
Ef you want to take in God.

Laborin' man an' laborin' woman
Hev one glory an' one shame,
Ev'y thin' thet 's done inhuman
Injers all on 'em the same.

Ibid.

Ibid.

This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable

feetur.

Ibid. No. ii.

We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.

But John P.
Robinson he

Ibid. No. iii.

Sez they did n't know everythin' down in Judee.

Of my merit

On thet point you yourself may jedge;

All is, I never drink no sperit,

Ibid.

Nor I haint never signed no pledge. Ibid. No. vii.

Under the yaller pines I house,

When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, An' hear among their furry boughs

The baskin' west-wind purr contented.

The Biglow Papers. No. x. Second Series.
Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth
On War's red techstone rang true metal,
Who ventered life an' love an' youth
For the gret prize o' death in battle?

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
And peeked in thru' the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'Ith no one nigh to hender.

"T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blessed cretur.

Ibid.

The Courtin'.

Ibid.

HARRIET W. SEWALL.

1819

Why thus longing, thus forever sighing,
For the far-off, unattained, and dim,
While the beautiful, all round thee lying,
Offers up its low, perpetual hymn?

Why thus longing?

DINAH M. MULOCK. 1826

Two hands upon the breast,

And labour 's done :

Two pale feet crossed in rest,

The race is won.

Now and Afterwards.

1 Two hands upon the breast, and labour is past. Russian Proverb.

KINGSLEY.-ENGLISH.-WELBY.-RANSFORD. 567

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

O Mary, go and call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

1819-1875.

And call the cattle home,

Across the sands o' Dee!

The Sands o' Dee.

THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH. 1819.

Don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?

Sweet Alice, whose hair was so brown,
Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile,
And trembled with fear at your frown!

Ben Bolt.

AMELIA B. WELBY. 1821-1852.

For every wave with dimpled face,

That leaped upon the air,

Had caught a star in its embrace,

And held it trembling there.

Musings. Stanza 4.

EDWIN RANSFORD.

In the days when we went gypsying
A long time ago;

The lads and lassies in their best
Were dressed from top to toe.

In the days when we went gypsying.