PART IX PATHOS AND SORROW TEARS, IDLE TEARS TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; Dear as remembered kisses after death, ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON (The Princess). FIDELE FEAR no more the heat o' the sun, Fear no more the frown o' the great; Care no more to clothe and eat; Thou hast finish'd joy and moan: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (Cymbeline). EVELYN HOPE BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead! Little has yet been changed, I think; Sixteen years old when she died! Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name, It was not her time to love; beside, Duties enough and little cares; Till God's hand beckoned unawares, And the sweet white brow is all of her. Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope? And our paths in the world diverged so wide, No, indeed! for God above Is great to grant as mighty to make Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few ; Ere the time be come for taking you. But the time will come -- at last it will When, Evelyn Hope, what is meant, I shall say, In the new life come in the old one's stead. I have lived, I shall say, so much since then, Gained me the gains of various men, Yet one thing one in my soul's full scope, I loved you, Evelyn, all the while; My heart seemed full as it could hold,— There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. So hush! I will give you this leaf to keep; See, I shut it inside the sweet, cold hand. There, that is our secret! go to sleep; You will wake, and remember, and understand. ROBERT BROWNING. TO MARY IN HEAVEN THOU lingering star, with less'ning ray, Again thou usher'st in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary! dear departed shade! Where is thy place of bilssful rest? See'st thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? That sacred hour can I forget? Those records dear of transports past, Thy image at our last embrace - Ah! little thought we 't was our last! Ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green; The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, Where is thy blissful place of rest? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? ROBERT BURNS. AULD ROBIN GRAY WHEN the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye's come hame, And a' the weary warld to rest are gane, The waes o' my heart fall in showers frae my ee, Unkent by my gudeman, wha sleeps sound by me. Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride, To mak' the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea, He had nae been gane a twalmonth and a day, When my faither brak his arm, and the cow was stown away; My faither couldna work, my mither couldna spin, I toil'd day and night, but their bread I couldna win; My heart it said nay, and I look'd for Jamie back, My faither urged me sair, my mither did na speak, I had na been a wife a week but only four, I saw my Jamie's wraith, for I could na think it he, Sair, sair did we greet, and mickle did we say, I gang like a ghaist, but I care na much to spin; I dare na think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin; So I will do my best a gude wife to be, For auld Robin Gray he is kind to me. LADY ANNE BARNARD. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, We buried him darkly at dead of night, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Nor in sheet or in shroud we wound him; Few and short were the prayers we said, We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that 's gone, But little he 'll reck if they let him sleep on But half of our heavy task was done, When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. |