But the graveyard lies between, Mary,

And my step might break your rest— For I've laid you, darling! down to sleep, With your baby on your breast.

I'm very lonely now, Mary,

For the poor make no new friends,
But, O, they love the better still,
The few our Father sends!
And you were all I had, Mary,
My blessin' and my pride:
There's nothin' left to care for now,
Since my poor Mary died.

Yours was the good, brave heart, Mary,
That still kept hoping on,

When the trust in God had left my soul,
And my arm's young strength was gone:
There was comfort ever on your lip,
And the kind look on your brow-
I bless you, Mary, for that same,
Though you cannot hear me now.

I thank you for the patient smile
When your heart was fit to break,
When the hunger pain was gnawin' there,
And you hid it, for my sake!

I bless you for the pleasant word,
When your heart was sad and sore—
O, I'm thankful you are gone, Mary,
Where grief can't reach you more!

I'm biddin' you a long farewell,
My Mary-kind and true!
But I'll not forget you, darling!
In the land I'm goin' to;

They say there's bread and work for all,
And the sun shines always there—

But I'll not forget old Ireland,

Were it fifty times as fair!

575

576

And often in those grand old woods
I'll sit, and shut my eyes,
And my heart will travel back again
To the place where Mary lies;
And I'll think I see the little stile
Where we sat side by side:

And the springin' corn, and the bright May morn,
When first you were my bride.

CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER

[1808-1879]

LETTY'S GLOBE

WHEN Letty had scarce pass'd her third glad year,
And her young artless words began to flow,

One day we gave the child a colour'd sphere

Of the wide earth, that she might mark and know,
By tint and outline, all its sea and land.

She patted all the world; old empires peep'd
Between her baby fingers; her soft hand

Was welcome at all frontiers. How she leap'd,
And laugh'd and prattled in her world-wide bliss;
But when we turn'd her sweet unlearnèd eye
On our own isle, she raised a joyous cry-
'Oh! yes, I see it, Letty's home is there!'

And while she hid all England with a kiss,
Bright over Europe fell her golden hair.

SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON

[1810-1886]

THE FAIR HILLS OF IRELAND

From the Irish

A PLENTEOUS place is Ireland for hospitable cheer,

Uileacan dubh O!

Where the wholesome fruit is bursting from the yellow

barley ear;

Uileacan dubh O!

There is honey in the trees where her misty vales expand, And her forest paths in summer are by falling waters fann'd, There is dew at high noontide there, and springs i' the yellow sand,

On the fair hills of holy Ireland.

Curl'd he is and ringleted, and plaited to the knee-
Uileacan dubh O!

Each captain who comes sailing across the Irish Sea;
Uileacan dubh O!

And I will make my journey, if life and health but stand,
Unto that pleasant country, that fresh and fragrant strand,
And leave your boasted braveries, your wealth and high
command,

For the fair hills of holy Ireland.

Large and profitable are the stacks upon the ground,
Uileacan dubh O!

The butter and the cream do wondrously abound;
Uileacan dubh O!

The cresses on the water and the sorrels are at hand,
And the cuckoo's calling daily his note of music bland,
And the bold thrush sings so bravely his song i' the forests
grand,

On the fair hills of holy Ireland.

577

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
[1806-1861]

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat

With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river;
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flow'd the river;

'And hack'd and hew'd as a great god can
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan

(How tall it stood in the river!),

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,

Steadily from the outside ring,

And notch'd the poor dry empty thing

In holes, as he sat by the river.

'This is the way,' laugh'd the great god Pan (Laugh'd while he sat by the river),

'The only way, since gods began

To make sweet music, they could succeed.' Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!

Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,

Making a poet out of a man:

The true gods sigh for the cost and painFor the reed which grows nevermore again As a reed with the reeds of the river.

578

SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE

I

I THOUGHT Once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in its antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—

"Guess now who holds thee?"—" Death," I said. But, there, The silver answer rang,-" Not Death, but Love."

BUT only three in all God's universe

Have heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, beside

Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied

One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse

So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce

My sight from seeing thee,-that if I had died,

The deathweights, placed there, would have signified

Less absolute exclusion. "Nay" is worse

From God than from all others, O my friend!
Men could not part us with their worldly jars,
Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;
Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:
And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,
We should but vow the faster for the stars.

UNLIKE are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise